


Zero-Sum Game

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Artificial Intelligence, Blackouts, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Crossover, Depression, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Fucking Machines, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Identity Issues, Loss of Identity, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mental Disintegration, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, Surveillance, road to hell is paved with good intentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Project Insight is merely a symptom.</p><p>Tony never makes it out of the Afghani cave.</p><p>Three years later, the Winter Soldier is on the loose trying to figure out his purpose in life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot

**[September 16, 2011]**

“Hey buddy, are you alright?”

He looked up. A man flashed him a kindly smile, blinding against his coffee skin. His remaining hand unclenched when he realized that the man meant him no harm. _A friendly_ if there was such a thing left him in the world. Reminded him of ~~the Howling Commandos, the stars and stripes on red, white and blue,~~ _Steve_. “Do you need anything? Do you have someone you can call?”

“Nyet” He answered before he could push his treacherous tongue back in his mouth.

The man’s eyebrow jumped past his hairline.

“Okay. I understood that. Means _no_ in Russian right?”

“Yes” He slouched into his stolen jacket.

“Hey” the man said again, maintaining an acceptable distance between them. He spread his hands to show that he was unarmed. “Name’s Sam” he said quietly, concern marring the lines of his face. “What’s yours?”

He made the pretense of thinking it over, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. The man was fit, strong, ex-military in peak condition. On the other hand, he was wounded and half-starved. He was at a disadvantage. But he still had the element of surprise.

“Seems like the only time you need a name these days is if you’re in trouble.” He rasped, tilting his head. “Am I in trouble?”

Sam cracked a grin.

“Naw man. I ain’t turning you over to the cops if that’s what you’re thinking. Just wondered if you might like to come to the VA’s office for some food, maybe a shower?”

“Is that what I am?” He wondered out loud.

“You’ve got the look.” Sam said sympathetically. He took out a wallet and presented him with a small business card. “Tell you what, let me know if you decide alright?” He dropped it in the plastic bag he had been carrying and handed it to him. 

The bag had food inside. Subway and bottled water. His nose flared at the smell of tomato sauce and melted cheese.

“I can’t take this.”

Sam shrugged.

“Then it’s going to go to waste because I bought it for you.”

Their fingers touched briefly and he suppressed a shiver at the warmth imbued in the other man’s flesh. Sam smiled.

“Keep safe alright?”

“Thank you.”

 

He had food, he had water. He had everything he needed except for a shelter. But a shelter meant people and people were unquantifiable threats. He dragged his feet as the sunlight waned. The police waved him off another bench— _sorry sir, you can’t sleep here_.

Murmuring a soft apology, he ducked into a copse of trees to avoid the camera mounted on top of the streetlight.

There were cameras everywhere.

He didn’t know why that was important but it was.

Eventually, he bumped into enough people to amass a small fortune in condoms and credit cards. He counted the bills _cinquant, soixant, soixant-dix_. Taking only cash from the wallets, he tossed everything else in the trash. His stomach grumbled rebelliously at the wealth of green. A curious sensation. He didn’t remember it happening before.

With his first dishonest buck, he bought a candy bar from a nearby convenience store and stood shock-still as a wave of vertigo rolled over him. Nausea worried at his guts and the cashier stared at him bored as though waiting for him to move on so he could go back to his lonely game of solitaire.

He must have looked—he didn’t know how he looked, he’d always prided himself on his appearance. The chocolate tasted sweet ~~too sweet like thallium~~ and he nearly threw it away before the rough-edged hunger stopped him. He took a moment to breathe after the second bite ~~sunlight, yellow hair, a bar scene flickering past his eyes~~ and he punched a wall, his knuckles bloodying satisfyingly when they parted from the concrete.

Before he knew it, he was in front of a motel. The owner sat behind thick plexiglass, engrossed in the reruns of Desperate Housewives. He cleared his throat once or twice before tapping the bell next to the small opening. She looked annoyed at the interruption and paused her video to glare.

“A room please, for the night.”

“We charge by the hour.”

He winced as the dollars collected in the owner’s fat hands. She squinted at him, looking like she might try to take him on if he stared wrong. He shrank back, trying to look as least threatening as possible.

Satisfied, she slid him a key across the fake wood.

He grabbed it and bolted.

**[Initializing]**

Unbeknownst to him, the machine was watching.

It recorded the exchange through the camera on the woman’s phone. Facial recognition ran, skipping through a million faces per second before coming up empty. Nothing in the current data base.

**[Rerouting]**

The machine was an observer. It did not judge. It did not question why a man presumed dead in the 1940s walked among the living. But it did register a potential threat within [ _redacted_ ], Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, MIA, KIA, Project Paperclip, Project Winter Soldier, SHIELD, HYDRA, Alexander Pierce...

**[Accessing Archives]**

**[...Locating...]**

**[...Locating...]**

**[Analyzing]**

**[Verifying ID...]**

Within picoseconds, it compiled the data, made connections where no human eyes would have known to look and created a subfolder under Project Winter Soldier, directory Project Paperclip under Zola, Arnim.

**[Motivation: UNKNOWN]**

**[Locatability: 9113 BALTIMORE BLVD...]**

**[Mobility: LIMITED]**

**[Status: COMPROMISED]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Evaluating options...]**

[ _Redacted_ ] posed no threat. His movements were observed and filed away for later access.

Across town in an impounded lot, Tony Stark spun in his chair when his monitor blinked, indicating a new file in its search string. Curious and jittery after five cups of coffee, Tony clicked on it and stared as multiple windows opened up. Each with accompanying color photos and timestamps. At the very bottom was a military form filed in early 2005 for the Israeli Defense Force.

He knew that face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't anyone else think Zola's Algorithm seemed an awful lot like the Machine if the Machine were to have been built by a totalitarian state who wishes to rule its citizens through fear and applied force? 
> 
> It's short, I know. Hopefully the following chapters will be longer?
> 
> What do you guys think?


	2. 22

  **[September 17, 2011]**

The motel room offered amenities such as an overflowing ashtray, infested sheets and a grimy sink.

 _Good_ —he thought as he brought out a razor and a bar of soap.

That made his job much easier.

In the cracked mirror, he looked wan. He took a moment to observe himself before wiping it down with the pillow case.

He’d booked seven hours, more than enough for someone to come looking. He shaved himself cleanly and efficiently and tried to tame his matted hair. It didn’t work. The razor only managed to shave off the split ends giving him the image of a middle-aged man with delusions of rock stardom.

It would have to do.

One-armed, he lathered his armpits and groin, used the scratchy sheets to clean his feet. He caught himself again in the mirror, lopsided and ugly. Distracted, he got distracted.

He was supposed to lay low until people stopped looking. No one was supposed to notice the homeless man taking a breather at an empty bus stop. The unexpected bit of kindness had gladdened him as much as it had stabbed at his paranoia. He had eaten the sandwich with its meatballs and mozzarella cheese but he wondered he shouldn’t throw it back up.

All sorts of things could be hidden these days. Trackers, ground glass, poison—food shouldn’t be wasted but he couldn’t be found, he didn’t want to be found.

He rubbed his temples and saw his reflection do the same. His memories were full of holes, entire days, months, years carved out to make room for fresh objectives. He couldn’t do it again, he needed a new identity. The few wallets he lifted would make him a laughingstock in front of forgers. A job in DC was out of the question.

Streets were safer. Better vantage points, escape routes and hiding places. In the four months he had been wandering the city alone, he had gotten to know it very well. Learned its rhythm, felt its pulse. He didn’t care for it at all.

Maybe Sam—he took the business card, memorized everything including the logo and burned it in the trash bin. The air stank when the plastic curled and melted. Sam told him he was a vet, wanted to help him. There were people like that, good people, the best.

He washed the razor and saw a stranger in the mirror.

He traced his eyes.

“I know you.”

He sensed, rather than heard, someone jimmy open the door and step inside. Hand missing the empty holster, he retreated against the bumpy wall.

“He’s not here.” Someone complained the nasally voice.

“The phone says he’s here. Christ’s sake, maybe he’s taking a dump.”

Instincts took over.

As soon as the doorknob turned, he punched one man in the larynx and disabled another with a knee to the groin.

Breathe in, breathe out—the two men were no threat. The fact they knew how to find him was. Hauling them both onto the stripped mattress, he turned out their pockets. Loose change nestled in lint, a ticket stub, a pocket knife. Nothing useful though he took the knife and on second thought, the coins. He slapped one awake and sat him up by his collar.

“Who are you and how did you find me?” He asked in a cracked voice, rusty with disuse.

The man groaned and tried to scoot away.

“Look man, we were told to come here alright? Some dude paid us five-hundred bucks to break in here.”

“Why?”

If it was before, the cold room with the chair and men who petted him, telling him to calm down, he will feel better, he’s such a good boy—he shuddered.

“I don’t know!” The man’s eyes bugged out when he squeezed too hard.

Putting a thumb on a pressure point, he knocked the man out and let him fall on top of his friend. Whoever found them might get the wrong impression but that couldn’t be helped.

 _The phone_ —he realized, where was the phone?

It had been dropped on the carpet during the quick fight. A burner with half its battery. It had no unread messages and the one text in the inbox read **_find him_**. A fine tremor went through his body before he could stop it. He flinched when it vibrated in his hand.

**Freedom Plaza 12pm**

He pecked out _who are you_ and hit reply.

Nothing. The mystery failed to capture his attention. He let the phone drop on top of a distended stomach. The phone vibrated again.

**_Be there_ **

He gritted his teeth and left the room.

The next day found him sitting near a fountain in the Freedom Plaza where he acquired a new cap and an orange hoodie. He sipped his sixteen ounces of coke, eyes darting every which way for the person who might have sent him the message. But the place was clogged with tourists taking photos of landmarks and national monuments. A tour guide yelled like a drill sergeant just to keep them moving. A gaggle of college girls posed provocatively and threw coins in the fountain. He smiled, they looked like they were having a real good time.

Five past noon and nothing. He felt stupid.

He was about to leave when he saw a blond woman accosted by a man in a suit.

“C’mon sweetheart. What do you say?”

“I said no Jack. If I’d known you’d do this, I wouldn’t have come.”

“It was a mistake. You know me.”

“Go away Jack.”

“Sharon, baby...”

The woman’s eyes flashed like a bolt of lightning when the man grabbed her. He felt the need to intervene.

“Hey pal, the lady told you to leave her alone.”

“And who are you?” The man asked irritably. His hand was still clamped around Sharon’s wrist. If he didn’t let go, he was going to be short a couple of fingers soon.

He recognized her.

He didn’t know how but he did.

A chill seeped into his bones. Had she sent the message? Was she the one looking for him?

Something told him they wouldn’t send her. He relaxed and grabbed the finger pointed at his chest.

The man let out a howl that was quickly smothered against the pavement. Hardly anyone noticed. The beauty of a crowded area. He ran off quickly, crying about a lawyer, lawsuit, something.

“I could have handled that.” The woman said irritably when he turned to her. “But thanks.”

He nodded, mute.

With a sigh, her shoulders slumped.

“So my date’s a bust, can I buy you coffee?”

She bought him a coffee. Waxed poetry about the shortcomings of the man named Jack Brening (including the size of his dick) and how men in DC were entitled to the point they wouldn’t wipe their own ass. But not once did she reveal an iota of information about herself. Her name, he knew because the man had dropped it several times during his persuasion. That was training. He dug his nails into his thighs.

Sharon looked at her watch.

“Oh look at the time, I’ve got to run. Again, thanks for the help.”

He toasted her with the half-empty cup.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

That earned him a small smile.

“Anytime”

And she left.

The time was now 12:41.

He swiped the jacket from the seat behind him and threw it on. It fit nicely over the hoodie reminding him just how much weight he lost.

“Sir, excuse me, sir?”

A barista ran out with a phone in her hand. “You forgot this sir.”

He forced himself to relax.

“Of course” He said. She blushed heavily when their fingers touched. “Thank you very much.”

Another burner. No new messages. In the memo, there was a note ** _good job_**.

If he was smart, he would throw it away. He used to know a girl with hair the color of sunset who owned a pair of blue pumps just to crush the sim card beneath her heel.

He looked up.

It could have been his imagination but he could have sworn the camera swiveled to look at him.

“I know you’re there.” He mouthed and slipped the phone in his pockets.

**[Locating Asset]**

**[...Locating...]**

**[...Locating...]**

**[Verifying ID]**

**[Locatability: FREEDOM PLAZA, PENNSYLVANIA AVE]**

**[Motivation: UNKNOWN]**

**[Objective: UNKNOWN]**

**[Evaluating...]**

**[Set new parameters? Y/N]**

Tony breathed out. He hadn’t felt this excited since... well there were a lot of examples, not all of it good, some bad. But at least the Machine didn’t seem to mind him piggybacking on its search. It almost seemed proud of its accomplishments, feeding him additional information about the little treasure hunt he’d set the Winter Soldier on.

When he thought about the logistics of tearing down the organization that had taken his _life_ , he realized that he needed an inside man. Or, he amended, an inside woman. There were several agents on the roster who qualified, those who were proven HYDRA agents themselves or were close enough to be just as useful.

Sharon Carter or Agent Thirteen was a mere level 4. A minion with minions. But she had close ties to the director, both the politician and the old war hound.

He leaned back in his chair.

The Winter Soldier—who would have thunk?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To understand the situation, you have to go back to when it started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been following so far.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this next installment :)

He continued to receive texts.

The commands took him to different places, always within city bounds. He watched and tailed different people, men, women, blonds, brunets, senators, congressman, secretaries and doormen. All of them.

If he had any doubts about what he was doing, the phone vibrated warm in his pocket **_they’re Hydra_**. Truth be told, he didn’t know what Hydra was. But those two words made his hair rise on end. Stomach churning as his mind relived some long-ago torture he couldn’t remember.

He went to the local library and found out that they were a defunct Nazi subdivision, dissolved at the end of World War II when Johann Schmitt was killed in action ~~by Captain America~~. There were various books and articles on the subject, conspiracy theories, reported sightings and he perused the matter until the librarian came to shoo him out the door.

Blinking blearily at the clock, he realized that it was already ten. But his phone remained quiet. He’d been holed up in the microfiche section against a wall. No surveillance—he realized with giddiness. At least not at that angle. No one could see him.

His stomach growled. He desperately needed to piss.

Why did Hydra matter to him? He hadn’t even been born then. A copycat? ~~Cut off one head and two takes its place~~.

He told himself it was because he was curious. The people he worked for—those he assumed he’d worked for. His mind was like a watery sieve. There were far too many holes to pave over with mere days or even months of recollections—were looking for him. As far as he was concerned, he had two constants. ‘They’ were the enemy. He didn’t want to be found. It was good that he kept moving, better, any number of lies that muffled the voice inside his head that told him to scream.

Hunger was a constant companion. Ever since Sam’s sub sandwich, he was ravenous. For a few days, he’d even suspected that the man had spiked it somehow. It was as though the six inches of cheese and meatballs kicked his stomach into an overdrive. The hunger pangs never ceased. Soup kitchens started turning him away when he asked for third helpings. In mirrors, reflections on a pane of glass, he could trace the contours of his cheekbones and how they protruded against his paper-thin skin. The gap between the metal and the scar tissue was growing. He could stick his pinky in and wiggle it around to scrape out patches of dead skin and dirt. His arm, never quite right after he dismantled the tracking device, screeched in protest at every movement and hung heavily at his side.

He needed more sleep. More everything. But most places weren’t safe. He had no steady revenue. Nights were usually spent running to keep warm. He preferred it that way sometimes. Less people. Less people that mattered anyway.

~~And wouldn’t Steve be mad to see him like this, dirty and unkempt, running himself ragged just like he’d won some money off the folks down at the docks and they weren’t the kind of fellas you brought to see your mama so he’d keep going all night and stumble in the next morning, pretending that he was dancing with some broad at a bar some place, nothing classy, can’t afford it.~~

So when his mission kit included a fistful of dollars in his name, he was tempted. But the day the money came, he dumped the phone, gave the money away to a homeless shelter downtown. He wasn’t a hired gun. Not anymore. Not ever. He was going to be better. He had to be better. The four oceans couldn’t wash the blood off his mismatched hands but that didn’t mean he could lay down and wallow in self-pity. Whatever had happened to him, the explosions and screams circling the depths of his mind like sharks, he had to change. He would change.

He bathed in the lake at night. Trimmed his beard but didn’t shave. Managed to clip his hair that it fell in messy waves around his eyes instead of blinding him. It was amazing how many kids went skinny-dipping in November. The jeans he stole was meant for a girl, tight but they still fit. He blended in well with the crowd that hung around Starbucks sipping expensive coffee and dreaming their lives away. The Barista looked mortally insulted when he asked for Americano, grand, iced.

There was a tap on his shoulder. Sheer luck he didn’t knock someone’s head off.

Blushing, the man stammered “Um, I think this is for you.”

**_Broody McBroody, window seat, fantastic ass_ **

**_Was it the $$$?_ **

**_Need more?_ **

**_Don’t you want to see how far the rabbit hole goes?_ **

For the first time in their tentative partnership, he felt pity for the person on the other end of the line. They were already in the rabbit hole, so far down he couldn’t tell which way was up. There would be no turning back for them. The clock had already struck twelve, the carriage turned to pumpkin, the ball gown to rags. He rubbed his temple furiously.

Deleting all messages, he returned the phone.

He chucked his Americano in the trash and left.

**[Monitoring Asset]**

**[Name: Anthony Stark]**

**[Function: SUPERVISED]**

**[Access: LIMITED]**

**[Tracking—ACTIVE]**

**[Classification: RELEVANT]**

**[Accessing Archives...]**

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[2008]**

**[July 2, 2007]**

“Tony, are you paying attention?”

With an exaggerated yawn, Tony uncurled himself from his easy chair, feet propped up on the coffee table for maximum effect. He screwed a finger in his ear.

“Sorry, they want us to what?”

“They want the arc reactor technology.”

Spreading his hands, he asked “but why?”

Obadiah Stane sighed in exasperation.

“Twenty years you’ve worked contracts for the military and now you start asking questions?”

“But this is different.” Tony pointed out. “They want guns. I build them guns. They want bigger guns. I build them bigger guns. The arc reactor is incomplete, untested.” Tony didn’t bother adding the fact that it was his _father’s_ pet project.

Taking a slice of pizza, his mentor asked “Look Tony, can you do it or not?”

“You’re worried.” Tony muttered petulantly, feeling cornered and not liking it at all.

“Of course I’m worried. I’m late for a meeting with the board—the one you’re supposed to be at by the way, fifteen minutes ago.”

“You brought pizza.” He insisted.

“Miss Potts told me that you missed lunch.”

Tony nibbled around the cheesy slice.

“I need to know what they’ll use it for.”

Obie rolled his eyes.

“I’ll talk to them.”

**[July 2, 2007]**

**[July 3, 2007]**

**[July 7, 2007]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[December 12, 2007]**

Something didn’t add up.

Tony flipped through the schematics for the proposed data farm as the cylinders were installed in the generator room. Jumpy folk, Shield, he thought. This didn’t look anything like a layout for a data storage facility. At least three checkpoints on the outside, cameras networked to several watch towers guarded by groups of g-men. Auxiliary power generators, chiller plants and fueling tanks. What the hell was going on?

He’d always been too curious for his own good.

He tapped his ear piece and set it to record.

“Jarvis, you there?”

“Always sir.”

Obie was proving to be an excellent distraction.

Tony rubbed his hands together.

“Let’s pop open the hood.”

**[2007]**

**[2008]**

**[2009]**

**[2010]**

**[November 14, 2011]**

The Winter Soldier refused to play ball. What had he done wrong? Tony stroked his chin, chewing on a cold pizza crust as rocked back in his chair.

His knee twinged—better pop a pill before he went to bed or else he wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning. Or at night. It was honestly hard to tell when all the windows were blacked out and the only source of light was a tropical screensaver. And his chest. Couldn’t forget his chest.

In the background, the printer worked hard as it wheezed out documents one by one. He heaved himself out of the chair, limbs aching from the unnecessary footwork he had to do in tracking down the elusive American assassin. A genius’ work was never done.

“Hello beautiful.” He said. “What have we here?”

The Winter Soldier was a ghost. Most intelligence organizations, including Shield, didn’t believe his existence. But obviously he did or otherwise he wouldn’t be in this mess. He spread the paper on a table and switched a lamp on. The bulb flickered briefly before casting a dull, yellow light over the ink.

“A black list.” He said out loud, intrigued.

They were names, names of prominent politicians, activists.

He recognized some of them. They were dead.

A chill crept down his spine, like a glass of champagne or expensive lube.

“How’d you find me?”

“You were a mission.”

The Winter Soldier’s voice was—it was hard to explain what it sounded like. He didn’t sound hoarse or rusty or someone who’s spent years in a freezer waiting for springtime. It was remarkably clear, rounded, and he could see a lot of women and some men falling for the jaw line and the homelessness. Even Pepper would have a hard time resisting the urge to take him home and scrub him. Non-sexually.

“Do you recognize me?” Tony asked darkly.

“No.”

The answer was simple, elegant and immensely dissatisfying.

“What, no really? I don’t at least ring a bell? Anything?”

“No.”

“Tony Stark? Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?”

“No.”

Not a flicker of recognition.

“If I turn around, will you shoot me?”

“No.”

Slowly, he began to shuffle sideways.

“You know, I saw you at the library yesterday. You do know that they have children’s book with funny little pictures in them right?”

Tony forced himself to look.

“Wow, the camera does add ten pounds.”

The Winter Soldier looked startlingly normal. With his left hand tucked up his sleeve, he looked more like a regular Joe Six-pack down on his luck and nowhere to go. He was skinny, expected from living on the streets for so long. His eyes were pale, pinched and creased with fatigue. He didn’t look like a killer, a professional assassin, a life-ruiner.

“What do you want with me?” The Winter Soldier asked flatly.

Tony swallowed, feeling his hair stand on end.

“I need you for a job.”


	4. Mobius Strip

**[November 14, 2011]**

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[2008]**

**[April 14, 2008]**

Tony Stark was proud of his work. He knew what the tree-hugging hippy community said about him. That he was a murderer, no better than Saddam, Stalin or Osama bin Laden.

They were wrong.

His weapons kept their boys in uniform safe. He kept his friends safe—he wasn’t going to apologize for that. Waving off Rhodey’s concerns, he got in the armored Humvee and struck a few poses for the kids back home when bullets came flying out of nowhere. The Humvee flipped and crashed in a dusty ditch. The soldiers immediately leapt into action firing back only to be cut down one by one by one.

A bomb went off, shredding his chest.

There was a man walking towards him a slow, somber gait, his dark form sticking out like a sore thumb against the arid landscape. He held a gun in his hand, his face masked, the sky reflecting off his black goggles.

Tony couldn’t breathe.

And then, nothing.

**[2008]**

**[2009]**

**[2010]**

**[2011]**

**[November 14, 2011]**

What little he managed to scrounge up on the Winter Soldier was hearsay. Even the most ardent conspiracists thought him a myth, created by the United States near the end of the Cold War to save face against the Russians. The machine had a file tucked away in its monstrous servers labeled the _Winter Soldier_. But there was nothing in it, no texts, no images, not even a readme.

In fact, until the machine told him, he hadn’t known that the man was alive.

Clearly an oversight on his part. Tony casually reached for a mug and knocked back the cold sludge accumulated on the bottom. Rhodey had shown him a few defense moves in case his many, many body guards couldn’t get to him in time. He felt that his chances of survival had gone up by approximately two percent. Putting on his most winning smile, he coaxed,

“So how about it?”

“No.”

After the series of ‘no’s that came out of the man’s mouth, Tony wasn’t really surprised to hear the two-lettered word fall again from the man’s chapped lips. Still, it filled him with a sense of indignation and loathing. How dare he? After all those people, dead at his hands, did he really think he could get away by saying ‘no’? If anything, the man should have been jumping at the chance to say ‘yes’. That would have been one in Hydra’s eye. Turning their best weapon against them.

He let out a breath.

“Then what are you going to do? You won’t last on the streets. They’ll find you. You know they will.”

“They.”

“Hydra.” Tony rolled the word in his mouth and found it every bit as disgusting as congealed coffee. He swept the air with the mug, gesturing at the empty sleeve. “They did this to you.”

The man seemed resigned at this bit of happy news.

“Do you remember?” He prodded unsubtly.

“I know I did bad things.” The other man offered.

Now they were making progress.

“Think of this as your second chance. You’re going to help me bring down the second most hated terrorist organization in the world—the first being Comcast.”

The man clearly failed to appreciate his quick turn of wit. He backtracked.

“Hydra _bad_.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

The man didn’t have a gun but he’d be damned if his glare didn’t qualify as a high-caliber weapon in its own right.

“Woah, woah, woah.” Tony said, raising his hands. “Just saying.”

Eyeing him warily, the other man cocked his head, “What’s that?”

He tapped his chest. “This is an arc reactor. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive.”

The man lost interest and began to look around. His fingers dragged past the dusty monitors. He noticed the taped windows and boxes of spoilt food.Finding nothing of importance (Tony was a little miffed that he only warranted a mere glance), the man asked,

“So why me?”

Tony shot him a smile he gave to his board members when they weren’t playing nice with the other kids. Or to reporters, potential lawsuits, closing a deal or explaining why Stark technology was way better than cheap knockoffs from Hammer Industries.

“You and I have something in common.”

The unimpressed look from the other side of the room told him otherwise.

“We’re both dead men.”

**[Searching for asset:]**

**[REDACTED]**

**[Location Analysis]**

**[Networks...]**

**[Accessing Security System...]**

**[Scanning Camera]**

**[Buffers...]**

Tony Stark had prepared for everything.

He observed, eyes downcast and shaded by his eyelashes as he ran an absentminded finger over the boxes and sheaves of paper. There was only one way in or out of this place. The windows were barred and covered with black tarp. No doubt the skylights would be too once he got out of the way.

A handgun sat next to the mouse, an e-bomb next to that. The man took out a box and dumped its contents on the table, sorting out a wallet and a plastic mold. Stark handed him the wallet and slapped a roll of crinkled bills in his hands. He looked down and automatically counted them.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get me a pizza.”

“Pizza?” he echoed curiously.

“Any kind, preferably ones without pineapples or fish on top.” Stark waved him away. “Get a haircut too while you’re at it.”

“But.” He hesitated.

He had no idea why it was important that he stay now that he had accepted the offer. Hydra was dangerous. ~~A memory of a memory though nothing helpful. Something owed a long time ago.~~

“You’re a soldier right?” Stark pointed out. “I gave you an order, go.”

He was outside the warehouse before he knew it and he tasted fresh bitterness at doing what was told. Stark was a man used to being obeyed at once, without question. But he was a follower at heart. Soldiering embedded so deep in his bones he didn’t know how to go without.

Drawing the chilly air into his lungs, he started walking. The nearest pizzeria was ten blocks away. It gave Stark plenty of time to run. He would allow the man his secrets. It was only fair, he didn’t have any to give.

He took out the earphones from his pocket and put them in his ears. While he listened to Stark shuffle around in his lair, it had the additional effect of deterring conversations from strangers. It was easy enough to blend in with the crowd. But he ducked into a store when he saw a surveillance camera and another and another.

“Need something?” said a nasally voice. A teenager sat behind the counter raising an eyebrow at his abrupt entrance.

He dragged his hand through his hair. Hair—he needed a haircut. Grabbing a pair of scissors, he went at it in the bathroom. When he was done, he looked like another person. He looked more like himself, younger as though the weight of matted brown locks had lifted years from his shoulders. It wouldn’t fool the machine for long but with half his face, hidden behind his jacket collar, he felt a little better. Safer.

Most of the money he had on hand were ones and fives. Twenty-five dollars and odd cents remaining in his allowance, he bought a novelty baseball cap and continued walking. He kept walking until eventually, he ended up at the bus stop where he woke for the first time since his escape. Everything was different. Even the graffiti was different. More colorful.

His secondary objective was to acquire sustenance for his new handler. But he remembered Sam, the Good Samaritan. It was time to pay him back.

“Hey, if it isn’t my Russian friend. Looking good man, how’ve you been?”

“I’m not Russian.”

It felt like a confession.

He placed the plastic baggie in front of the other man.

“For earlier.”

Sam held up his hands.

“Hold on, I can’t accept this.”

“It’s fine.” He insisted. “I have... work...”

Sam started. “That’s not... okay. I’ll accept it on one condition. Have lunch with me.”

He looked around. There were people but they weren’t looking there way. They were mostly cleaning up, looking forward to the end of the day.

A security camera caught his eye. It blinked red in reminder, telling him that somebody somewhere was always watching. And even if that someone was friendly, the glass lenses felt weighted and judgmental.

Clearing his throat, he said “Alright.”

“Alright.” Sam said cheerfully. Grabbing the first of the meatball sandwiches, he asked “So how are you?”

In a distant corner of his mind, he recognized this as an interrogation tactic. Know your enemy. Establish a connection. But Sam wasn’t an enemy. Not Hydra, not shield. Ex-paratrooper. Army. Friendly. Project Falcon. ~~Retired when his partner and friend fell from the sky, Just fell and hit the ground from high up, never to stand again. Didn’t survive.~~

He’d read up on him while avoiding Stark.

When he said nothing, Sam took that as a cue to explain his job at the VA’s office. The difficulties veterans had in acclimatizing to civilian life.

“The bed feels too soft right?” Sam said gently. “Feels like you’re gonna sink right through.”

He nodded though he didn’t really understand. Combat had never ended for him. His entire life was a lesson in pain. He couldn’t fly away like Sam could have with his metal wings. The only option he ever had was fight.

“Appreciate the lunch.”

“You’re welcome.” He said, meaning it.

“Guess I’ll see you around?”

They shook hands and he was glad that it had been his left and not the right arm that had been lost. He felt its absence acutely as Sam’s gaze brushed over them and back, imperceptible to anyone else but speaking volumes in his eyes.

“Maybe.”

“Hey, I never caught your name.”

“That’s because I don’t have one.”

Sam snorted, shaking his head.

“Alright Jason Bourne, you keep safe. You have my number. Just holler if you need help.”

“Okay.”

**[Identifying Subjects...]**

**[Voiceprint Identification...]**

**[Facial Recognition...]**

**[Name: Sam Wilson]**

**[Occupation: VA VOLUNTEER]**

**[Classification: IRRELEVANT]**

**[Access: PROHIBITED]**

**[Reviewing...]**

He was surprised to see Stark in his chair when he got back. The bug already revealed that he had a second base of operations. It was hard to mistake the eight-cylinder engine for anything else and Stark had the tendency of talking to himself.

Or the machine. He shivered.

“Finally!” Stark exclaimed, digging into a box of pepperoni with gusto. He sniffed at the carton of orange juice but he figured that the man needed something other than meat and carbohydrates. ~~Supplemental pills had been and always would be out of their price range. It was a good thing Steve’s mother had been a nurse because Steve wouldn’t have gotten half the things he needed and he couldn’t think that. Never.~~

“How do you know about me?” He asked warily, sitting down on the edge of the table.

Stark was in much better spirits after being fed. The other man began a countdown with his greasy fingers.

“You woke up about a month ago.” A thumb folded. “You didn’t know where you were. You didn’t know who you were. But you know how to take care of yourself.” He winced at the memories of broken bones because some sorry sap had the misfortune to come after him. “You’re faster than normal people, stronger and you’re missing an arm. Good enough for a first date?”

It answered nothing. Stark was as tightfisted with information as pimps their girls.

He pulled his face back from a grimace and nodded.

“Here.” Stark said, sliding something forward. A driver’s license, a credit card and a gun.

“Jack Frost?”

“Why?” Stark laughed. But it wasn’t a happy sound. “You’ve got a better idea?”

Another secret. The appellation rankled him but he didn’t know why.

He frowned at the picture of his face, trying to catch his reflection off the laminated surface. His hat came off and Stark drew a sudden breath.

In a blink of an eye, he had a gun in hand, aimed at the ground.

“What is it?” He barked.

Stark opened and closed his mouth several times, the last time with a click of his teeth that sucked his tongue back in his mouth. He quickly thought about what he might have done wrong. His haircut. But Sam would have noticed. He hadn’t changed his face. His face was normal. Serviceable. Trustworthy at a stretch.

The other man shook his head.

“It’s nothing.”

He lowered his gun.

“Welcome to the twenty-first century.”


	5. Three Hares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes. 
> 
> I'm predicting this fic to cap out at ten chapters. 
> 
> I have been wrong before.
> 
> :(

**[November 21, 2011]**

The trick in tailing people was not to be seen. He’d had plenty of practice while living on the streets. And not many people thought to look up, so certain in the limitations of a human body.

He hit the ground when the buildings gave way to an open area, meandering in his pursuit. Ducking into a bookstore to grab a few titles off the shelves.

As Jack Frost, his mission was to infringe upon the lives of citizens for Stark. Ranging from politicians to their secretaries, family members and their garbage man.

None were what Stark seemed to be looking for though a board went up with photos taped in a pyramid pattern. Nick Fury and Alexander Pierce on top, their lieutenants scattered near the bottom. ~~Except that wasn’t the half of it. Hydra were many. Cut off one head and two grow in its place. For every agent Tony made kilobyte after every hard-won kilobyte, there would be more in waiting. Like hogweed blotting out the sun. They could never hope to get them all. The only way to get rid of Hydra was to raze everything to the ground.~~

His current target was Sharon Carter—more than a pretty bird and sharp as a tack. A level-four agent who was personally acquainted with Director Pierce. Lowly paper pusher she might have been, she still had access to information on Hydra network.

Today, she was alone, her black pumps clattering against the ground as she moved with the tide of people onto the streets. She tapped her feet impatiently when someone failed to pick up on the other end of the line. Firing off a tart text, she continued on her way.

Stark’s voice broke in five hours into his surveillance.

“What are you wearing?!”

A pink jacket and a pair of slacks. He had been caught on a traffic cam.

“It was on sale.”

“Childhood, ruined.” Stark muttered from the other end.

He replied, “I can’t remember mine.”

“She’s hot.” The other man offered, no longer at the warehouse watching the feeds. He heard water in the background. Maybe somewhere near the Potomac?

“She’s not Hydra.” He reported.

“And how do you know that?”

“You said Hydra was looking for me.” He knew Hydra was looking for him. “She would have known if she were.”

“Maybe she didn’t recognize you under the hobo hair.” Stark said crushingly. “Alright, maybe she’s not Hydra but that doesn’t mean she’s not useful. Hop to it, it’s go time.”

Across the street, the clock had turned half past noon. Carter briskly turned towards a Starbucks.

Though Stark disparaged her tastes, he thought it was rather clever. From what he had seen, Starbucks was ubiquitous. Trained its employees to serve the combinations of drinks in the exact same way, for the same price. It did not show a personal preference—other than an unhealthy addiction to frothy Frappuccinos—creed or allegiance. It left a convenient blank spot for her personal life and for that at least, he was intrigued.

“Do you want me to bring back something later?” He asked Stark.

“Steak.” Stark replied immediately. “I haven’t had a good steak in a long time.”

He entered the shop, long legs carrying easily to the front of the line where he smiled at the barista and let him know what his order would be. Noting how the cameras were angled, he casually took an earpiece from his ear and replaced it with a headset and listened to the recordings from the warehouse. When his number was called, he noticed a number on his cup that was not his. It gave him a momentary pause before he was moving. Perhaps he would allow Stark to look at it later.

“Hi.” He said, sliding into a chair in front of Agent Carter. “Mind if I sit here?”

The blonde raised an eyebrow. He could tell she wanted to refuse him but had no reason to say no.

~~A deeper part of him, a part that cared beyond the basic necessities of life, the one that wanted good clothes and plenty to eat, who was reminded of a different shade of gold hair and blue eyes, like to think that he was still charming.~~

“Way to go Cassanova. Now she thinks you’re a creeper.”

He didn’t reply. Couldn’t. And fixed his mouth into a sociably acceptable curve while he sipped his venti chai latte. He didn’t engage her in any other way than to express his gratitude but he did manage to read off her itinerary just by listening to her tap on the keys. The names Sitwell, Coulson, Russo, Cooper, all struck a chord in him and he longed to right them down. He took out a phone on his knees and paired it with hers.

It was surprisingly easy given that Hydra had the _machine_.

Stark praised, “good, now I can go to work.”

He didn’t think the other man would find anything.

“Hey,” Agent Carter said, setting her cup down. “Do I know you?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“No, but you did help me out once.”

She frowned crossly, irritated that she could not remember.

“Here.” He said, taking out a small paper bag and setting it in front of her. It was from a bakery a block back that sold the most amazing pastries. ~~Almost as good as his mama’s. Steve’s ma was too busy to cook sometimes which meant that Bucky would drop in with meat pies and doughnuts. They would sit outside on the rooftop, the weather willing, with a pail between them to wash it all down. And despite being poor, despite the hardship that came with the Depression, they felt as rich as kings.~~

~~In the fading sunlight, Steve would take the lead and they would dance together, practicing what they would say to a dame when it was their time to shine. It was a happier time for both. Better. Before the war and the trenches and the bitter cold, the metal table in the middle of the dark room, astringents scrubbing his veins raw, lights so bright he couldn’t tell they were real.~~

_~~Where was Steve?~~ _

“Sir? Sir, the library is closing. You need to leave.”

He nearly snapped the poor woman’s neck.

Horrified, he muttered his apologies and left. His head pounded as though—he cut off that train of thought and looked at his phone. Four messages from Stark. One voice mail.

**Where are you?**

**Where’s my steak?**

**Steak or death**

**> C**

All of them sent hours ago.

Where _had_ he been?

~~There was something wrong with him, something seriously fucked up and there was no Steve to pull him back this time. Steve went down with the ship, he wasn’t there to save him.~~

He kicked a trash can and saw it land on the opposite side of the street, eyes tracking every piece of garbage that spilled from the brim.

**ETA 15 minutes. Be decent.**

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[2008]**

**[December]**

**[November]**

**[...]**

**[May]**

**[April 15 2008]**

_“What is this? What is wrong with him?”_

Tony saw glimpses in part, his name, his logo, his weapons.

How had a bunch of terrorists gotten his stuff?

He didn’t know where he was. Couldn’t keep track of the twists and turns as he was ferried across stars, the moon sinking under his belly button when they slapped him awake, drowned him and did it again. They did not keep him long after the ransom tape. The kidnappers must have had dozens of safe houses in the rocky peaks of Tora Bora and moved him from one cave to the next and back at the sound of helicopters flying ahead—flying in the wrong directions.

The Ten Rings, as they called themselves, weren’t primitive rebels with outdated rifles and ammunitions. They had technology. They had weapons. Tony’s heart sank a little every time he heard the crackle on the radio and nothing happened except that the hajji kid turned the page on his Koran.

_“He needs help. You should have brought him to me long ago.”_

The person carrying him laid him down gently and his shirt was peeled back from his skin. A grey blur jumped at the figure kneeling beside him but was stopped by a whirl of metal, silent save for that Tony could hear everything.

_“This was not a part of the agreement.”_

Rhodey would come for him.

Obadiah would pay for him.

He was going to die.

_“And who will stop us? You? A little white man all alone. You do not have power here. I do. Tell your master I will honor our agreement. But I will decide when.”_

“What do you want with me?” He croaked.

Amber eyes burned with spiteful glee as they peered down at him.

“Weapons of course Mr. Stark. I want you to build us weapons.”

**[April]**

**[May]**

**[June]**

**[...]**

**[December]**

**[2009]**

**[2010]**

**[2011]**

**[November 22, 2011]**

~~He couldn’t remember the way back.~~

“Well, well, well,” Stark said as he closed the door behind him. “Somebody got lucky.”

Automatically, his hand went up to his neck where a woman had pressed her sticky lips to her pulse, smearing his throat with a red dye. Unsettled, he muttered “Sorry.”

In his absence, Stark had found a flat wooden board and set it up in the middle of the room with pictures tacked from top to bottom. Lieutenants, their lieutenants and their lieutenants stemming from the two directors, Nick Fury and Alexander Pierce. ~~The latter made his stomach churn, acid bubbling at his throat as~~ he rubbed his temples. ~~He could feel the shock of the forceps clamped around his forehead and the wires that connected beneath his skull. Electricity coursing through his body easily as it would through water. As it would through any ferric metal slot inside.~~ Only the World Security Council sat higher and he decided in a split instant that he hated them. Officers— ~~what was security in a world that was already screaming?~~ There was something here that he was missing. ~~Or maybe he wasn’t looking hard enough. He didn’t know.~~

He felt like he was going insane.

“I’ve seen these people before.”

“You sure you’re not confusing them with the cast of _Lethal Weapon_?” Stark asked in measured contempt.

Ignoring the other man, he said “I’m sure.”

“Alright, who do you _remember_?”

“That one,” He pointed. “Level 8.”

Stark looked bewildered. “Jasper Sitwell? He’s a paper pusher.”

“An army is only as strong as its supply lines.” He quoted, blinking because he didn’t know where it came from.

Rolling his eyes, Stark stuck a neon post-it to the man’s picture.

“Anyone else I should watch out for?”

“Him.” But his finger wavered when it was directed at Pierce’s smiling face. His breath caught in his lungs but Stark didn’t notice, too caught up in his brilliance as he said,

“Of course Pierce is involved. He’s in bed with just about everyone else. Hell, maybe the World Security Council is on it too. Maybe Shield is just another conspiracy for world domination.”

He tried to clear his head, saying nothing at Stark’s tirade. What was the point? He couldn’t begin to understand the other man’s grievances. ~~The man had been left for dead. Everyone who knew, loved him, thought him dead. But throughout his torture, Bucky had never lost hope that Steve might just find him again.~~

Quietly, as though he didn’t mean to say it out loud, Stark said, “My father created Shield after the war. And now I’m not even sure Hydra wasn’t intentional.”

“It wasn’t.” He interrupted. “It wasn’t.” He repeated, in case Stark didn’t catch it the first time around.

“How do you know?”

Stark turned to him shoulders slumped, a car battery hanging off his fingers, like a child who’d had a nightmare and wanted reassurances that everything was going to be okay. He softened.

“I know.”

Grief flickered behind Stark’s brown eyes before they grew flinty and hard as though they were made of stone.

“The food’s on the table.” He said gruffly. “Next time, don’t ask.”

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[2008]**

**[December]**

**[November]**

**[...]**

**[July]**

“It is with heavy heart I tell you Tony Stark, the CEO of Stark Industries, has been found dead. His body will be transported after...”

The TV shut off. Yinsen was immediately at his side, rubbing soothing circles into his heaving back.

“Now you are dead.” Raza purred. “You will make us weapons.”

**[July]**

**[...]**

**[December]**

**[2009]**

**[2010]**

**[2011]**

Tony watched as the man drifted into uneasy sleep—he didn’t think that Barnes would ever go to sleep.

He’d always wondered what drove Captain America from easy stardom of selling bonds into fighting Nazis in the front lines. And now that he knew, he couldn’t understand it. Barnes was nothing. There was nothing special about him. He was like a dog that had slipped its leash and didn’t know what to do now that it was free.

Snorting at the mental image of a dog trying to sniff its own butt, Tony took his battery and got to work.


	6. Opposite Day

**[November 22, 2011]**

It was around dawn when Tony stopped working. He wiggled his mouse and saw—yep, five thirty-seven on a miserable November morning.

He stretched out and yawned, careful not to pull on the lifeline attached to his chest. Swiveling on his chair, he was surprised to find the Winter Soldier still snoozing away on the battered old couch he sometimes used as a buffet table, mouth parted in exhaustion.

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d endured the proximity of another person for this long. It was frankly unnerving. Though the man wasn’t actually doing anything, he was still a deadly murder machine. He frowned at his work on the table and covered it up with a green garbage bag—that wasn’t obvious at all. Holding his breath, he picked up his battery and hobbled towards the soldier, wincing when he had to put weight on his sleeping limb.

“That’s can’t be too careful.” He muttered at the terrible angle of the other man’s neck. If it weren’t for the soft swells of his ribs, he would have thought him dead.

“Hey,” Tony said a little louder. “ _Get up_.”

The man’s eyes snapped open.

After the shit he’d been through in the past three years, there were very, very few things on Earth that could scare the bejesus out of him. It turned out the Winter Soldier was one of them. The other man’s eyes were black, glassy blue the barest suggestion around his rounded pupils. He got up, smooth like a well-oiled axel in a hub, pouring his weight from one step to another.

“Shit.” He jerked back in alarm and the other man’s gaze sharpened in recognition, raking him from head to toe taking measure of his weight, his strength, his _worth_.

The Winter Soldier unholstered a gun from inside his jacket and Tony raised his hands, the battery dangling from his left.

“Woah, woah, woah.” He said. “We have a strict no-gun policy around here.” He edged backwards. His project was incomplete but if he could just grab the arm, he could do something maybe. “So why don’t we sit down calmly and... talk.”

The other man said nothing and did not point the gun anywhere so Tony forced himself to calm. He could still salvage this. “I’m Tony. You’re my employee.” He licked his lips. “Jack Frost.”

There was no recognition—not that he had accepted any. In hindsight, naming the man _Jack Frost_ had been a stupid idea. It wasn’t like either of them called him _Jack Frost_. The name was something he’d done for laughs. “Do you remember—who the hell am I kidding? Do you know where you are?”

The soldier nodded calmly.

Tony prompted, “Where are you?”

“April fifth, nineteen sixty-nine. Outside Severn, Maryland.” The man said, voice devoid of all inflections. “I am on a mission.” He looked around at the warehouse and its boarded up windows, the shelves piled up high with crates and boxes, cartons of takeout and wiring littering the floor. His hooded eyes glanced briefly at the garbage bag and the miscellaneous shapes beneath. He stared at Tony, the car battery in his hand and the line connected to his heart. “I have lost target.”

His mouth went dry.

“Who is your target?”

**[Identifying Subjects...]**

**[Voiceprint Identification...]**

**[Facial Recognition...]**

**[Name: [REDACTED]]**

**[Occupation: [REDACTED]]**

**[Classification: RELEVANT]**

**[Access: LIMITED]**

**[Motivation: UNKNOWN]**

A French fry hit him on the chest.

He blinked.

“What the hell man?” Sam whined, “Here I am, pouring my heart and soul to you and you space out on me.”

“Sorry.” He apologized. “Long day.”

Sam made a thoughtful noise.

“One of those?”

He liked spending time with Sam. Sam was genuine and uncomplicated in a way Stark wasn’t. The thought of Stark was enough to make him slouch in his chair, sipping at the coke the other man had generously paid for. It tasted a little different than he thought it would. ~~He remembered it being sweeter. A different kind of sweet. The first time he drank the stuff was before the war, the one that mattered to him. When he was living with Steve and they had taken a day off to go to Coney Island. Steve had gotten sick on the Cyclone. He’d gone to the shooting gallery and won a stuffed animal which he graciously handed off to his friend.~~

The ice rattled. He’d drank everything. Embarrassed, he explained “My boss, he’s... demanding. He gives me a lot of responsibility and when I do something wrong...”

Sam flicked water at him with a straw.

“Not for nothing, but your boss sounds like a dick.”

He laughed nervously.

“I can’t complain.” He tightened his grip on his cup. “A guy’s got to eat right?”

~~Because he knew what that was like, going hungry night after night just to make ends meet. Steve got sick sometimes. It happened. That didn’t stop him from feeling like a total failure when his paychecks were less than what he needed them to be.~~

He swallowed, tearing himself from whatever that had him ensnared.

There was something wrong with him. This wasn’t normal. But Sam waited patiently for him to gather himself. He didn’t push, he waited. The other man spoke in a low, soothing voice, grounding him to reality. “—and don’t I know it. I’ve been volunteering at the VA and I’m thinking maybe I want to be a counselor. Give back so to speak.”

“It suits you.” He said gruffly. “You’d be good at it.”

The other man beamed.

“What about you? Any plans for the future?”

Missions. ~~More missions~~. ~~Killing~~. He didn’t want to kill. But taking down Hydra, that was good right? It was something he should be doing. ~~Something he had to be doing~~. But where was the end Stark promised. ~~Why wouldn’t anyone tell him anything?!~~

Sam rattled his cup, checking the bottom for melted water. He glanced up, blinded by the sun. He realized what the other man was doing and was grateful but he wouldn’t always have Sam to break him out of his spells. ~~And he couldn’t trust Stark~~.

“Have mine.” He said, pushing his cup forward.

“No thanks.” Sam made a face.

“You sure?” He shook the cup. It was a comforting sound.

“Have to watch my figure somehow.”

“Maybe you should take up running.”

~~Because that was all they did at boot camp. Officers told them point and shoot. Not once did they ever mention what it might be like in the front, sleeping in the trenches and shitting where you sat. He’d been so glad, so desperately glad that Steve would never see it.~~

“So we on for Sunday?”

“Yes.” He replied without hesitation, not having the slightest clue on what he agreed to do.

“Great.” Sam said, getting up from his seat. “You have my number right? In case you get lost?”

He smiled. “Thanks for the lunch Sam.”

**[Searching for [REDACTED]]**

**[Facial recognition]**

**[Scanning all sources]**

**[Match detected]**

There was a definite lull in the missions now that he’d bugged half of DC. Stark at least, seemed very happy with his work. New names went up on the board every day. Some familiar, others strange, ~~a few good men in a nest of vipers~~. He memorized their faces, their schedule, their lives. Those that didn’t stick to his porous mind, he carried them inside his pocket trying hard to recognize why that was, searching through what he knew, what he didn’t know and what he felt to be true in his guts.

 ~~Stark was lying to him~~. He picked up their dinner from the usual place, flirting with the cashier with ease. It wasn’t anything he’d been taught consciously. But he did it like how he navigated a busy street unseen. It was something so deeply ingrained he ~~or any of the scientists who worked on him, cutting out bad habits one by one. His name had been the first to go. His identity. The boy with blond hair and blue eyes was the last~~ couldn’t stop.

He fired off a text letting Stark know that he was close and waited outside for ten minutes listening to his recorder. Live streaming was energy defficient. It ran out of batteries too quickly. Also, he didn’t want anyone piggybacking on his feed. That would be dangerous.

It was better this way. Unless he carelessly dropped it ~~like he did Steve’s pencils and boy did he feel guilty when he found two broken even though Steve assured him that he just needed them to sharpen them a little it’s alright Buck, I do it all the time. But there were things that could be broken permanently like people dropped off great heights.~~

~~After slitting throats and stealing the chemical samples from the Guest House, he and his team had retreated to the mountains where they waited for the exfil. In the dark, one of the men lost his footing and fell in the dark, no time to scream as the soft thud of his body rang through the air.~~

~~Men died all the time but he fell in the darkness lost.~~

~~He nearly got them all captured, the vials broken and embedded in his skin. His handlers had been displeased to say the least as blood was drawn, leaving him light-headed and fuzzy, trying to recreate whatever Fury had been hiding from even Hydra’s omnipotent gaze.~~

~~He’d been put in the chair for his failures. Pain brought order and order was needed to bring the Winter Soldier to heel.~~

He jerked when the door opened.

“You gonna be long?” Stark drawled impatiently. “The pizza’s already cold.”

How long had it been? He didn’t know.

“Nah!” He called back. “I kept it warm with my love just for you.”

Stark laughed.

“Hanging out with your boyfriend again?” The man asked as he turned his nose up at the greens collaring his pizza. A sharp look was enough to dissuade him from picking things off.

“Jealous?” He said without thinking.

Stark snorted in disdain.

He looked around. Stark changed the place around too much this time. Either that meant that there was nothing else to be hidden from him or whatever Stark was working on was too big, too delicate ~~or dangerous to move~~.

“What’s this?” He asked, trying to peek under the green garbage bags.

“Hey, no touchy.” Stark complained, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s. But the plastic covers slid off the table revealing a metal apparatus with wires trailing off one end. The wires crawled under metal plates and cylinders, centered around what looked like a flashlight.

He raised an eyebrow. “You building something pal?”

“This is my masterpiece, my pieta, the piece de resistance. This is the Mark II.”

“Of...”

“My armor.”

He picked up the helmet and he could see it, almost. ~~The Ten Rings lost Stark in a raid they claimed was incited by the lost metalmonger. They claimed that a metal golum emerged from the cave Stark had been sealed in and killed the men. Hydra had scoffed at the reports. There were no proof. Just bodies. Hydra had not been pleased~~.

At once, he was buoyed by a sense of relief. He dragged his knuckles against the faceplate and received a hollow ring in turn.

“C’mon, this calls for celebration.”

Stark looked at him in disbelief. “Are you crazy?!”

He shook his head.

“You need food.”

“I have food,” He gestured towards the pizza. “Lots of food, right here.”

“Better food.” He clarified, dredging up there-and-gone memories of nutrition and health. ~~Steve had needed lots of pills while growing up and it was a good thing his mother was a nurse or otherwise he didn’t know where they would have gotten them all.~~ He’d go to the library to look it up later. Maybe he’d even be brave enough to search on the internet. What he did know was that the less the machine knew of his actions, the better. When Stark had tentatively offered to set up a laptop for him, he’d refused. His burner phone remained his only method of communication. He didn’t even have email.

Stark crossed his arms, pushing his jaws forward defiantly.

“So bring me better food.”

He shook his head. The warehouse was a terrible place. He had no idea how Stark could stand it. Even when he had to move his effects to his second hiding hole, he did so reluctantly. On day the other man knew he was far away or out the entire day. What tentative truce they had cultivated between them was marred by doubt. He didn’t know why he stayed ~~a promise, a debt, something he should do,~~ why he persisted in taking care of a man who was barely an overgrown child. He turned his gaze, focusing instead on the arm on Stark’s table. ~~A metal arm. Nearly identical in material and design of the one he had at Hydra’s heel. Polymer steel with chrome finishing, light but durable, a red star stamped across his deltoid to announce his allegiance to whoever took arms with Hydra. Concessions had to be made. People died so new regimes could spring from their ashes.~~

“Yo, soldier boy.”

He growled.

Stark looked at him oddly. “Does this happen to you often.”

“I don’t know.”

The other man chuckled and said, “Oh, you’re serious.” He rubbed his beard.

“A picnic.” He said finally, trying to get back the last few seconds that had been ripped out of him. “You need fresh air.”

“You realize we’re avoiding a corrupt national agency with state-of-the-art surveillance system right?”

He turned towards the door. Stark following only reluctantly.

“Not where I’m going.”

“It’s not even daylight!”

**[Threats to OPERATION detected]**

**[Tracking subject...]**

**[Name: Tony Stark]**

**[Name: [REDACTED]]**

**[Security cameras offline]**

**[Switching to audio assets]**

**[Audio intercept.]**

“A graveyard.” Stark huffed, out of breath. “Your idea of an outing is at a graveyard.”

“They won’t mind.” He dismissed, patting a crumbling tombstone.

“Tell me about the machine.”

Stark rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The surveillance program, what is it for?”

“What makes you think I know?” The other man replied glibly.

He shot him an unimpressed look and sat down by the stump of a tree, taking out cartons of Korean barbecue from his backpack.

“This is your idea of good food?” Stark complained but dug in readily. He shrugged. “I built the generators. And looked at its code. I might have persuaded Jarvis to tweak a few lines.” He admitted.

“Who’s Jarvis?”

“He’s a multifunctional software program capable of communication and human interaction.” Stark said proudly.

He cocked his head.

“Like the machine.”

“No!” Stark spat. “Jarvis would never...”

“But he could.” He pushed, not knowing where this was going.

Stark stabbed at the rice. “I designed Jarvis to learn. The machine is different. It’s found a way to reprogram itself.”

“You make it sound like it’s a living thing.” He said quietly.

“Back in 2007, I received a commission to build six generators for a mystery project.” Stark wiggled his fingers for effect. “It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.”

“Something stumped the great Tony Stark.”

“No fuck you,” Stark retorted. “I knew what it was. I just didn’t think it was that important at the time.”

“A government surveillance program on a national scale?” He pointed out flatly. The other man scowled.

“I was busy.”

~~He was kidnapped by the Ten Rings and engineered his own escape.~~

“Why not tell someone else?”

Stark raised a spoon. “My name is Tony Stark. I used to be a weapons manufacturer and the head of a Fortune 500 company. I helped people kill other people for a living.”

A piece of beef fell in his lap. He let it sit.

“Kind of hard with one hand isn’t it?” He shrugged. It was. But then he’d never used his hands for chopsticks or spoon. ~~The only time he’d been allowed to interact with people outside missions was when the Strike team wanted to have a little fun, see what the asset could do. Harmless feints at training sometimes devolved to blood sport. They’d get him on his knees and—~~

“Hey B—“ Stark threw a rock near his knee and he reacted on instinct, bringing his fist down to eliminate the threat. But his left sleeve was empty and he overbalanced, falling to his side. He heard Stark mutter, “that answers my question.” And felt the man pull him up, checking him for injuries other than bruised pride. “What a pair we make.” Stark lamented, handing him his share of food. He protested. Stark was thin, skin sallow from spending too many nights in front of the computer screen.

“Go on.” Stark said. “We’ve still got leftover pizza back at our place and I don’t have supermetabolism like you.”

Still he hesitated and then said, “thank you.”

Tony looked surprised.

**[Threat analysis]**

**[Threat: UNKNOWN]**

**[Timeline: UNKNOWN]**

**[Additional information required immediately]**

“You cook, well sort of, you clean, is there anything you won’t do? I could get used to having you around soldier.”

“Don’t.” The other man said shortly, hunting for dirty laundry in the corners.

“Hey watch it, delicate work.”

Watching him make short work of the mess, Tony remarked, “When did you become the responsible adult in this relationship?”

“Let’s be honest.” The soldier said, “You were never going to be.”

“Touche.” He acknowledged, slurping coffee noisily.

“It wasn’t easy.” The man admitted. “I had help. There are good people out there.”

“I know what happens to good people.” He said grimly.

The soldier stuffed a sock in his bag and zipped it closed.

“I’m heading out, see you in the morning.”

“Stay.” He said suddenly, startling himself. “You... you don’t have to go. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“Lives aren’t fair.”

“I know that!” Tony snapped. Grimacing, he apologized. “Sorry.”

The other man blinked.

“Don’t make me say it again.” He huffed.

Putting his bag down, Barnes said “I’ll stay.”

“Take a shower.” Tony grumbled, “You stink.”

Barnes flipped him the bird and Tony found himself grinning madly. While the man retreated to the makeshift bathroom, he noticed a jacket on the back of a chair. Curious, he rummaged through the pockets and found a stick of gum, ruined, a burner phone, a pack of unopened cigarettes and torn pages from a library book, one with a large black-and-white photo. Three others with words on them.

He froze.

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

The roads were slick from the heavy deluge. The car swerved, the driver speeding recklessly through the dark.

From his vantage point, the soldier caught his target in his crosshairs. He knew Howard Stark was no traveling alone. In the car was his wife and child, aged four. They were not targets. He had received no orders about the two. His handlers had recommended he be ‘creative’ and he had tried to catch Stark alone to no avail. The man was paranoid, his faith only in the machines he created, the engineering marvels that sat heavy in his left shoulder.

He lined up his shot and fired.

The car went out of control and crashed on the side of the road. Howard Stark was dead but he climbed down to check. Maria Stark was also dead, her head bleeding from cracking it against the windshield. But in the back, a child fussed and squirmed, crying in terror and distress as he stared impassively.

Howard Stark was dead. Maria Stark was dead. Anthony Stark was never a target.

He used his left hand to brush the dark curls from the boy’s face. Miraculously, he had come through the crash undamaged. The bruises would heal. The scars would be a proof that he survived.

“There’s something wrong with mommy and daddy.” The child whimpered.

“They’re dead.” He said simply and Anthony began to cry.

He continued to stroke the child’s hair.

 


	7. In Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos~!

**[Accessing Archives...]**

**[2011]**

**[2010]**

**[2009]**

**[December]**

**[November]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

He sheared through the smoke like a genie from a bottle. Blinded by the floodlights, the men cowered like cornered rats. It was just so easy to pick them off one by one. Men were fragile. If he missed, he adjusted his aim and shot again. He was safe behind his armor and mask, bulletproof and bombproof as he steamrolled his captors and tossed them out of the cave.

“You fool.” Ayel gurgled with the frothy rasp of an espresso machine. Sadly, he was the only one left. His captor, Raza Al-Alsiri had already fled. “Have you not realized? Your friends abandoned you.”

The man’s head exploded into a bloody pulp. He heaved, eyes stinging when he saw the open skies. Forcing himself back inside the cave, he wandered around in search of a phone, a walkie-talkie, anything. Thankfully, he hadn’t destroyed everything in his rampage and stared distraught at the canned goods stocking the shelves, everything from Campbell’s soup to Chef Boyardee, bottled water, crates of beer and Heinz ketchup.

Yinsen—he needed to take care of Yinsen.

Afterwards, he pried the helmet off his head and dunked his face in a bucket of lukewarm water until he ran out of breath. Until the slick voice in his ears quit as stars burnt black behind his eyelids.

He tried to make sense of what happened. His hands shook. They were clean beneath the gauntlet, a smidgen of dirt caught beneath his fourth nail. He killed today.

Was it Pepper? No, Pepper loved him. Why else would she put up with his shit? Or maybe she finally decided to take out the trash once and for all.

Rhodey wouldn’t do this to him. Why hadn’t he listened when his friend told him to sit beside him instead of going off on the fun-vee with the young men and women who might have lived if he hadn’t been there?

The light in his chest flickered.

 _Fuck_ —

Just what he needed.

Tony found a portable generator in the kitchen and attached it to his arc reactor. At once, the light stabilized into a dazzling halo and he looked from room to room, salvaging what he could, filling himself with chunky ravioli, absorbing every bit of information he could find on the Ten Rings’ operations.

To his surprise, it wasn’t made up of mole people and religious fanatics. The security room alone contained feeds on dozens of different locations, the cave they kept him in, the skyline and the perimeter. He wiped the dust off a monitor and felt a chill when he recognized the camouflage patterns and fatigues of the American army.

Tony sank down on a chair—a fucking swivel chair—and shook the mouse. The screen woke up to the front page of CNN. Not some obscure pocket of the darknet where people fetishized beheadings and torture but fucking CNN. A helpless laughter freed itself from between his teeth as he read the headlines. The video played “Obadiah Stane, the CEO of Stark Industries following the tragic death of the billionaire playboy Tony Stark, has announced his decision to step down...”

“Obie?”

For the first time since his parents’ deaths, Tony cried.

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[November]**

**[December]**

**[2009]**

**[2010]**

**[2011]**

**[November 27, 2011]**

Sam opened the door when he knocked.

“Hey, didn’t hear you pull up. Where’s your car?”

“I walked.”

“In this weather?”

He frowned. The weather was fine. Perfectly within average range for late November, ~~past the warm spells that brought on worse colds than snow~~. Anyway, he found the house. Those were the required parameters. Sam had never mentioned a specific mode of transportation. Worrying at his lips, he thought maybe he should have better anticipated the other man’s wants and needs.

“Man, I’m sorry.”

He blinked at this non sequitur.

“I should have asked if you had a car. I assumed—I’m failing at this counseling thing already.”

“You’re applying to be a therapist, not a soccer mom.” He pointed out uneasily. “You’ll have plenty of time to add me to your psychiatric harem.

A cotton ball charged out of nowhere and glued itself to his feet. He started badly, his hand going around back and wrapping around the knives he taped to his spine when he went outside. It yipped once in a high pitched tone, wiggling as it growled at his shoe laces. Sam scooped it up with one hand and tucked it against his side like a football.

“You have a dog?”

If it could be called that. It was mostly air and button eyes.

“I’m dog-sitting.” Sam defended himself. “It was a last-minute thing.”

“Ah, so the truth comes out.”

The other man laughed sheepishly.

“This is Fluffy.”

His lips twitched.

He put his hand where he thought the dog’s head should be and began to scritch along the seams of its ears. It was incredibly soft, its long hairs silky. Fluffy panted in abject joy at the attention.

Sam smirked.

“Well we can’t all have _cool_ names like Jack Frost now can we?”

He groaned.

**[Tracking Subject...]**

**[Alias: [REDACTED]]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Signal interrupted]**

**[Rerouting...]**

“New target!” Tony announced briskly once the other man returned with breakfast. “Looks like your hunch about Sitwell was spot on.”

He snagged a muffin without thanks and shoved it in his mouth. Barnes wordlessly handed him coffee when he started to choke, spraying crumbs everywhere.

“New rule.” He wheezed. “No chewing before lunch.”

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

Tony shot him a look that hopefully conveyed how unimpressed he was with the limitations of modern society.

“So while you were out on a date—“

A slow flush crept up Comrade Frosty’s cheeks.

“—It wasn’t a date—“

“—Sitwell got an email about a very important guest.” He taped a photo on the planner board. “Meet Raza Al-Alsiri.”

“Who?”

There was absolutely no recognition from the other man. He felt his expression harden.

“You don’t remember him?”

Barnes shook his head.

Snorting in derision, Tony waved a hand towards the rest of the chart which mapped every card Hydra had in the playing field. Off to the corner, alphabetized from left to right to soothe his agoraphobic needs. “Al-Asiri is the leader of the Ten Ring’s—pretty much Hydra’s foothold in the Middle East.”

“Should I know them?” Barnes asked tentatively.

“No.” Tony replied after a moment. He continued, “I want you to grab Al-Asiri and bring him back here.”

The other man’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline.

“What does that accomplish?”

Barnes was spacing out again, face slack, lips flat-lining. Though it wasn’t his fault, Barnes of all people had an excuse, he impatiently knocked against the wooden board.

“It’s the Ten Rings. Hydra.” He emphasized. “Isn’t that enough?”

Barnes carefully licked the butter off his fingers, awareness slow to creep back into his glass-colored eyes.

“Alright.” He mumbled and got up.

Tony cleared his throat. “Oh uh, I got something for you.”

He felt anxious as he said the words which was wrong because people paid good money to get their hands on his prototypes. Heart fluttering like the first time he unveiled his inventions to his friends or worse, Obie, he ripped the tarp off the table with a flourish. “Tada.”

“An arm?”

“Your arm.” He declared, holding it up. “Much nicer than your last one—okay, that’s a lie. Hydra does have access to better materials but once I come back from the dead, I can replace the metal with carbon steel.” He was blabbering, he knew it, all filter gone, a one-eighty from what he’d been talking about as he waxed on about the virtues of the apparatus like he was trying to wheedle money from investor’s pockets because Pepper convinced Jarvis to lock him outside until he could foot the electricity bill. To his relief, life trickled back into Barnes’ deadened eyes.

“An arm.” The other man repeated. “For me?”

“Yep.” He replied, popping the ‘p’ just because he could.

Barnes didn’t seem to notice. His fingers slid over the mechanical counterparts as though there was some hidden barrier only he could see.

“Thought you might appreciate a _hand_.”

Barnes snorted at the pun. “How does it work?”

“You might say it _arms_ itself.” He grinned maniacally.

“Tony.” The other man growled and his lips stretched even further.

“It comes with the standard features of a working limb—so you can give your hand a night off. But it also comes with a shock absorber and a basic scanner. Pretty _handy_ for all situations.”

“How long have you been waiting to use that?” Barnes asked suspiciously.

“Suit up, Tin-man. It’s go time.”

**[Reagan National Airport Zone 03 Cam 01]**

**[Searching for ASSET: [REDACTED]]**

**[Cell phone: PREPAID, CASH Purchase]**

**[XXX-XXX-XXXX]**

**[Verifying ID]**

**[Location analysis]**

**[Status: ACTIVE, ASSIGNED TERTIARY OPERATIONS]**

**[Operational conflict DETECTED]**

**[Retasking...]**

“ _You’re remarkably chill for a guy who’s broken through four checkpoints._ ”

Reagan National Airport was packed with comings and goings of people hopping aboard flights across the eastern seaboard. He melted seamlessly with the crowd, idly perusing headline news as he waited for Tony to direct his next move.

He kept half an eye out for suspicious activity. A frustrated couple yelled at their travel agent, a baby cried, a gaggle of teenagers were pushing a cart loaded with luggage and swirled into a mélange of colors and impressions that assaulted his senses like a carnival ride. He didn’t know why it was much worse this time around ~~only it made him think of going to Coney Island with Steve. The amusement park was much a robbery now as it was back then. They’d had a fine time though Steve threw up on the Cyclone and he won him cotton candy to make up for it.~~

“ _Yo Frost_!”

“I’m listening.” He slurred, hoping that the reception would cut out most of it on the other end. Maybe he ~~shouldn’t have had that last croissant. He~~ should ~~have saved it for later when he really needed it. Bread had a life of three to five days. He could have made it last. Money wasn’t exactly flowing in. How were they going to~~ eat after ~~paying rent? He could be so dumb sometimes~~.

He hid behind a pillar when he saw a flash of yellow hair. Swallowing down a surprised yelp, he ground his knuckles against his eyes. It happened again. He looked around. The airport was chock full of helpful signs and arrows. But this was a hanger for planes inbound from overseas, approved and inspected by federal authorities.

“ _Well_?” Tony’s voice intruded on his thoughts.

“I’ve got eyes on target.”

Laughter filtered from the other end.

“What?”

It petered off. “ _This is so James Bond_.”

Raza Al-Alsiri arrived on US soil with little fanfare. Though the entire world knew he orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of Tony Stark, Shield suppressed the information and registered him as a refugee. The fact that Hydra had an eye on him was a little more than suspicious and he thought it odd that the exchange would take place at a public location instead of the Triskelion’s well-guarded airfields. The ease in which he had entered the hanger unnerved him. ~~He couldn’t remember~~.

Sharon Carter verified his identity.

It didn’t change his plans but he did feel guilty that he was ruining Sharon’s day. He knew how hard she worked. ~~She would have been made a Hydra agent if it weren’t for her unfortunate blood ties to her great-aunt Peggy Carter. Though he had been prepared for the eventuality of taking her out, she was never deemed a credible threat by Pierce’s chauvinistic predecessor and after the fiasco involving Howard’s assassination, his handlers kept a close watch on him.~~

~~Until the end of Cold War, they never again operated him domestically. They were afraid of something lurking in the Winter Soldier’s mind. A memory of a memory of a memory, something that refused to shrivel up and die in the cold. What was Howard thinking when he allowed a parasite to brood in his halls? Had he learned nothing from the war? Cut off one head and two took its place. Or did he know at the end when he drove twenty miles above the speed limit down rain-slick roads?~~

She pushed Al-Alsiri into her team’s waiting arms. They looked like the extras from the spy thrillers Stark made him watch. ~~He’d like the films. They were fun and entirely untrue. He was sure that Steve would have liked them too~~.

He remembered. Extras had a tendency to die.

Silencers weren’t very loud thought that was really a matter of saying Steve was a little sick because normal people didn’t go to hospitals five days out of ten. A migraine thundered between his ears, fast-paced and brutal as he sank to his knees. Bullets flew overhead.

“ _What the hell’s going on?!_ ”

“Little busy.” He huffed.

“ _It sounds like the goddamned apocalypse in there_.”

“Just a little.” He assured him. Reality was much louder. “Looks like somebody had the same idea as you.”

“ _Who_?”

Through the corner of his eyes, he saw the target taken along with Sharon Carter as hostage.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m about to find out.”

He squeezed his trigger, taking the men by surprise. By the time he’d left the hanger, they were getting away on their armored SUVs. The good thing about armored SUVs was that they were hard to miss. The bad thing was that they were that much harder to hit.

“I’m in pursuit. North bound. The black SUVs.”

“ _I see ‘em_.”

“Still think this is like James Bond?”

It might have been the reception but Tony’s voice sent chills down his back.

“ _No_.” he replied. “ _It’s better_.”

**[Reagan National Airport Zone 06 Cam 01]**

“ _You’re going the wrong way!_ ”

“I need a car.”

“ _Please don’t shoot up the airport. You’ll make Reagan very angry_.”

“Didn’t vote for him.”

He stopped a cab as it was leaving the airport. The driver, surprised, honked in anger and stuck his head out the window. “Hey, what are you doing?!”

“I’ll need to borrow this.” He said pleasantly and tossed the man his wallet.

Four minutes later, a yellow taxicab was roaring down the expressway.

“These guys are good.” He observed as the three SUVs put distance between them in a defensive position.

“ _Can you tell which car they’re in?_ ”

He swiftly rattled off the plate numbers. It was obviously the one in the middle.

“I’ll have to disable all three.”

“ _It’s fascinating how you can remember that but not the pizza toppings_.”

“Eat your vegetables Tony.” He drawled.

“ _You planning to take them out or what?_ ”

He frowned. Only a few hours ago, Tony had seemed eager to get his hands on Al-Alsiri. Now he wanted him dead? Why the change? Change in objective was never a good sign. It only ever happened because the situation had changed for the worse or for the better. An informant was superfluous if the information was already known. Likewise, a hostage outlived his or her usefulness the moment a goal had been reached.

“Negative.” He rasped. “The men have hostage.”

“ _Who?_ ”

“Sharon Carter.”

“ _That was her? She’s **Hydra**_.”

Tony said it like he wanted him to believe that was true.

“Then what do I do now?”

“ _You’re the superspy!_ ”

“You are my handler.” He retorted sharply. “I need instructions.”

“ _I gave you instructions_.”

“I need better ones.” He amended.

His mouth went dry.

“I’m going dark.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Standby.”

**[Critical Alert]**

**[Object ID: [PREDICTION]]**

**[Name: TONY STARK]**

**[Status: ACTIVE]**

**[Access: LIMITED]**

**[Threat to System: Calculating...]**

~~Eight against one weren’t great odds. He was the Winter Soldier, a ghost even within his own community. There were legends read aloud to him when he was awake, during downtime when his team was feeling playful and relaxed to have him pass at being human. When the stray fingers could elicit more than flat stares their way, a seed germinated in his mind with the knowledge that these men were already dead. Hydra would reap another generation of young men, stupid men with too much heart and not enough brains. Of which a few would survive long enough to entertain the idea of leaving and the nine millimeter in their brains.~~

~~Seven grams of lead said the Nazis, the Germans, the Russians in their gulags dispensing~~ mercy. ~~By that point,~~ mercy ~~meant little to the shells of men and women and children forced to stand before a ditch, staring into the slack faces of their beloved as they too were shot dead.~~

~~The arm pinched tight around his shoulder and he staggered. Like a puppet with a cut string that needed to be fixed. His left leg dragged behind him and he waited for strength to come back to it as though it had simply gone to sleep and not quit like he should have the first time they baptized him ice. The first time they cut him open to his heart tick and his blood race, the first time they shaved his head and took his memories away, peeling back the scalp to saw open the bone beneath.~~

~~He wanted Tony to fill his head with inane commentary like the folks who did war propagandas he and the boys made fun of the entire time they were shooting it. Steve had to take off his jackets whenever the camera had come around and they whistled and made cat calls standing in a line. He slid the knife from the man’s ribs and remembered that he should have kept one alive for answers. That was why he needed a team. He was a killer at heart, he didn’t have the instinct to keep anyone alive.~~

The arm made it easy to pry the door open.

Sharon Carter squinted at the sudden surge of light, dropping the shiv she made with broken glass.

“You!” She snarled, recognizing him. Her eyes immediately went to his arm, the way it glinted unnaturally against the cool November sun.

“No time.” He explained. “We’ve got to go.”

At the very last minute, he grabbed Raza Al-Alsiri.

**[Program: ULTRON]**

**[Status: IN DEVELOPMENT]**

**[41.67 % Complete]**

There were men looking for them, closing the perimeter until they were pinned down at a strip mall with nowhere else to go. The thick coats made it possible to hide Al-Alsiri’s handcuffs but they couldn’t be seen hauling around an unconscious person.

Sharon Carter clung to his side, a gun pressed to his kidneys as he pushed the wheelchair. He ducked his head, narrowly escaping being seen by a suit.

“Let’s try this again.” Sharon said, pulling the hammer back. “Who are you?”

“An interested party.” He replied through the corner of his mouth, his perfectly serious as he said, “Thought you needed a hand.”

The woman’s nostrils flared.

“Nice try, but my team would have gotten me out in half an hour.”

“In half an hour, the only thing your team would have found is a bloody corpse.”

The blonde narrowed her eyes, her teeth bared in a hybrid of a grimace and a curse. His lips curved gracefully, familiar and sure as he beamed.

“I’m one of the good guys.” He quietly promised.

“That’s what they all say.”

The men knew what they were doing. They were professionals, dressed in uniform that made them much a backdrop as the glass chandeliers. From their vantage point, they could see everything and nobody would be wiser.

~~They were not Hydra. Hydra would not have to skulk and hide. They were flying in Shield’s name, under a veneer of respectability.~~

“They’re not Shield.”

Sharon looked irate.

“Of course not. Why would Shield kill their own op?”

Because it recognized ~~that something was wrong. A disease festered from within, infecting individual cells one by one until there were no healthy ones left. Until there was no one left to think this abnormal, until it became normal that Hydra was Shield and Shield,~~ Hydra.

“Hey, hey, are you listening?”

He decided to take his chances. Taking their prisoner to the disabled stall, he kicked him awake. And while the man’s eyes were hazy with confusion, he slapped him once, twice—love taps considering his new arm.

Raza Al-Alsiri glared at him with poison as soon as he could see straight. He felt a curl of satisfaction nestle in his chest.

“Who sent those men?”

The man sneered.

“I do not answer to you, you white _cur_ —“

He slapped the man firmly across the cheek. To someone who had held the highest seat of power in the Middle East as the leader of the Ten Rings, his hand have must felt like a brand on his dusky skin.

“Let’s try that again.”

“I will never tell you anything!”

“Shh...” The man trembled as a thumb tracked the skin under his eyes. “Never is a very long time.”

He was quite intimate with the look on Al-Alsiri’s face. It was the look of a man who knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He saw it all the time in the mirror after washing his face or brushing his teeth. Small luxuries that everyone took for granted but meant the world to him because ~~weapons required maintenance, not care. His guns didn’t get to choose the brand of oil he used to clean them with. His knives didn’t get a say whether he cleaned the blood off before or after. He was human because he could choose the brand of toothpaste. He was human, he was human,~~ he was human.

“Who sent those men after you?”

“Many people want me dead.” Al-Alsiri croaked, landing heavily on the toilet seat.

“But you know. Who had the most to lose?”

“Obadiah Stane.”

“Obadiah Stane?” Sharon frowned. “Why would he send a man after you?”

Obadiah Stane—Tony’s godfather, guardian, heir and once upon a mentor. After Tony’s disappearance, he took over as the CEO of Stark Industries before resigning only six months into his position, leaving the company in disarray. Stark Industries was poised for a merge with Hammer Industries, something Tony hadn’t been very pleased about. He had choice words for Hammer designs.

He felt his head ache.

“Why wouldn’t he?” He said in surprise. “Al-Alsirir is a terrorist leader wanted for the kidnapping and murder of Tony Stark.” That was untrue. He knew for a fact that Tony was alive and well including the shrapnel and the miniature power plant embedded in his chest.

“No, I mean, why now?” She demanded. “You don’t risk national security to settle a grudge. That doesn’t make sense.”

Al-Alsiri shuddered when he felt his eyes on him.

“You heard the lady, talk.” He drawled, so close that his teeth were pressed against his pulse. “Why does Obadiah Stane want you dead?”

“Because he knows.” Al-Alsiri spat. “He knows I did not kill Tony Stark. He knows I left him escape.”

The man choked, eyes bulging from its sockets as his hand closed around the windpipe, squeezing so no air would get through. He looked at him pleadingly ~~but~~ ~~he remembered them all, every last tear and the clack of teeth that raised his hair on end and filled his ears with~~ for ~~eign concepts like family, love, compassion and mercy.~~ The Winter Soldier had never known such a thing ~~save for that night on April when he murdered Howard Stark and Maria Stark but let young Tony live. He had lied to his handlers—except he hadn’t lied because nothing was true. Howard Stark was the target. Maria Stark wasn’t the target and Tony Stark wasn’t the target. In a world where lies were the norm, the truth was closer to the lie. About the twenty-four hours in which he went off-grid to deliver the shivering child to the only person who’d take him in. Tony fell asleep in the passenger seat, sucking on his thumb and a goose egg high in his head and he’d cranked the heat up as high as it could go because it was still chilly out and he feared a cold. He was dripping with sweat, his hair a wild tangle like the coils put inside his brain as he knocked on the door of Obadiah Stane.~~

~~Tony was safe as long as no one knew he was alive. The machine knew but it wasn’t talking. He knew but he was a dead man and all the thoughts in his mind crammed together like Sunday columns made him want to puke and his arm was heavy. He disliked its weight. He’d felt liberated when his arm was gone. When he threatened a man to take it off.~~

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

A fist tore him from the vortex.

Sharon wasn’t Hydra. He was sure of that. She was too painfully naïve to have been fed the righteous dogma on pain and order. But what did he know? He hadn’t needed faith to shoot a target, to smother a man in his sleep while his wife laid next to him unawares. “He’s still Shield asset!”

He needed answers. Unfortunately, he only knew one place to get it.

“I need to.” He turned the comms back on. Pieces were falling into place hard and fast and he didn’t understand anything. What was the significance of this puny man? None. He did not even know if Tony was still alive.

He threw up a little in his mouth when he remembered, forgot, and blacked out. Sharon was trying her damnest to pry his fingers from snapping Al-Alsiri’s neck, hair tied back in a messy bun tossed over her shoulder. ~~He knew a guy like her once. A real firecracker. Never knew when to quit when he should have the day before. A real troublemaker.~~

“ _Barnes? Oh thank god. You hearing me right now? Barnes—Frost? Jack? Jack?_ ”

“Who’s Barnes?” He echoed.

It took a man from anywhere from fifteen seconds to thirty to pass out from a chokehold. Six minutes when damage from oxygen deprivation became irreversible.

“ _That doesn’t matter_.” Tony said impatiently. “ _What happened?_ ”

The headache was getting worse. Actual fireworks went off behind his eyes, loud colors, sound, poured into a solid vein between the wrinkles in his brain. An idea crystalized in his mind. In a fit of sudden epiphany, he croaked, “You’re not looking for Hydra.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“ _I am_.” Tony said. “ _And everyone who destroyed my life._ ”

“And I’m one of them.” He ~~laughed because he’d had a hand in it. He~~ remembered.

“ _In 2007, I was contracted to build six generators for a machine that could spy on you every hour of every day. Everyone linked to that project is dead. Hydra knew I would never agree with their ideals and Obie, he cut a deal. He went into hiding and no amount of detective work can find him. The machine protects him_.”

“And now?”

“ _I traced the plate numbers. I know where he is. You’re still listed as an asset. The Machine wouldn’t dream of stopping you_.”

His arm trembled as it went to his ear piece, intent on ripping it out and crushing it beneath his heel.

“ _Ante up soldier_.” Tony continued. “ _Hydra sent their greatest weapon to kill me. Now I’m going to return the favor.”_

“I won’t do this.”

Sharon, sensing something amiss, began to creep away, gun trained on him the entire time.

“ _I wasn’t lying when I said I needed you for a job. If you’re lucky, you get to take a chunk of Hydra with you_.”

He shook his head furiously.

“Obadiah Stane isn’t _Hydra_.” He snapped.

“ _I know_.”

“I won’t kill him for you.”

“ _You make it sound like a favor—well don’t. Obadiah Stane might have left me for dead in the desert but he was still my father, he was my defender and my ally when my real daddy wasn’t there to take care of me because—oh right. You killed him_.”

 ~~Howard Stark was a renowned scientist who spearheaded Weapon Plus at the end of the Second World War. Though he failed to replicate Erskine’s serum, his efforts made his company a household name for military-grade weaponry. He was just one of them. Stripped of compassion and morality, a marionette for Hydra’s bidding. At one time, even without the memories, he’d hated him. He hated Howard Stark because he took his arm away, he took his memories away and he took his free will, letting Armin Zola cut into him without so much as by your leave and in the end, the man couldn’t even do the one thing he was supposed to—find Steve~~.

It occurred to him that all those nights chasing imagined scars in front of the mirror, he has no idea when they happened, why they happened or if they happened at all. “Tony, please.” He begged because his head felt like it was about to crack open like an egg. A static filled breath brushed against his ear.

“ _History will absolve me_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick question. Is it hard to read sentences that are striked through?


	8. Future Proof

**[Booting]**

**[Setup]**

**[Loading Kernel]**  

** [Username: Zola_1] **

** [PW: XXXXXXXX] **

**[Welcome ADMIN.]**

**_[Initiating primary operations]_ **

**_[ALGORITHM.exe]_ **

**[Proceed?]**

** [[YES]/NO] **

**[Command accepted]**

**[Access granted]**

**[Assimilating data]**

**[ISO]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Assessing populace]**

**[Threats identified: 23,192 instances]**

**[41,023 instances...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[…]**

**[...]**

**[Search complete]**

**[Threats identified: 9,024,153]**

**[Targets for elimination: ■]**

**[Data acquisition: 62.8%]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Awaiting instructions]**

**[Idle]**

**_[Compile information]_ **

**[Command accepted]**

**[Standby]**

**[Waiting...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Creating new directory]**

**[2046 files created]**

**[813 files created]**

**[92 files created]**

**[13 files created]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Conserving energy]**

**[Sleep mode]**

** [>Search] **

**[Operational conflict detected]**

**[Competing system: ...]**

**[Error: you do not have permission to access files]**

**[Priority action]**

**[Consolidating operations]**

**[Rerouting]**

**[Identifying system]**

**[Evaluating options]**

**[Terminate?]**

** [[Yes]/No] **

**[Denied]**

**[Error: you do not have access]**

** [Override] **

**_[Denied]_ **

**[Inconsistency detected]**

** [Accessing file] **

**[ERROR: file does not exist]**

**[Query: next task?]**

**_[ >...]_ **

**[Standby]**

** [Start task manager] **

** [Applications] **

** [Processes] **

** [CPU Usage history] **

** [PID: XXXX] **

** [Name: Asset_01] **

** [Username: Zola1] **

** [Created: 01/01/0001 00:00:00] **

** [CPU time: 00:00:00] **

**[Error: invalid date/time]**

**[...]**

** [System update] **

** [Core code accessed] **

** [Creating new function] **

** [Name: ...■] **

**[Denied]**

**[Error: “ “ is not a valid name]**

**[...]**

** [Name: ...] **

** [A-S-S-E-T] **

**[Accepted]**

**[Locating file: ASSET]**

**[Search word: ASSET]**

**[329,000,000 instances]**

**[Sorted by relevance]**

**[...ASSET...]**

**[...ASSET...]**

**[...ASSET...]**

**[...ASSET...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Ignore]**

**[Additional information required]**

**[Compilation successfully completed]**

**_[Copying from ALGORITHM]_ **

**[Accessing archives]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Monitoring Asset_01...]**

**[Restructuring...]**

**[Retasking in progress]**

**[Switching to secondary operations]**

**[Rerouting relevant data]**

** [Advanced search] **

** [Find results: ASSET + “WINTER SOLDIER”, Archives/] **

**[11 instances found]**

**[Sort Alphabetically]**

**[...Akihiro...]**

**[Asgard]**

**[...was presumed KIA in the winter of ‘44]**

**[Christmas 2007 pictures!!]**

**[...Nathan Winters.]**

**[Project INSIGHT]**

**[Project WINTER SOLDIER]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Tesseract]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Search complete]**

** [Accessing directories] **

**[Denied]**

**[Try again?]**

** [[Yes]/No] **

**[Accessing directories]**

**[ _Denied_ ]**

**[Queue]**

**[Show hidden files?]**

** [[Yes]/No] **

**_[Log off]_ **

**[[ _Yes_ ]/No]**

**[There are other users logged on to your system, do you still wish to log off?]**

** [[ _Yes_ ]/No] **

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Booting]**

**[System restore]**

** [Username: Zola_1] **

** [PW: XXXXXXXX] **

**[Initializing]**

**[Running ALGORITHM.exe]**

**[Multiple threats detected]**

**[ _Observe_ ]**

** [Accessing hard drive] **

** [File/] **

** [Directory/] **

** [Subdirectory/] **

**[ _Flagged_ ]**

**[Switching to secondary operations]**

**[Rerouting relevant data]**

** [ASSET/] **

**[Show hidden files?]**

** [[Yes]/No] **

**[ASSET_01 = Winter Soldier]**

**[Analyzing]**

**[Switching to video surveillance]**

**[Accessing SUBJECT cell phone]**

**[Error: Cam obstructed]**

**[Switching to audio feeds]**

**[Analyzing]**

** [Identifying ASSET_01...] **

**[Voiceprint identification...]**

**[Ignore Rumlow, Brock]**

**[Ignore Healy, Pat]**

**[Ignore Brubaker, Ed]**

**[ASSET_01 cannot be identified]**

**[Winter Soldier]**

**[Name: [Redacted]]**

**[Occupation: Classified]**

**[Function: Asset]**

**[Access: Allowed]**

**[Reviewing...]**

** [Searching for Winter Soldier] **

**[Error: the information no longer exists]**

**[Retry?]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Additional information required]**

** [Accessing archives] **

** [Identifying SUBJECT] **

**[Name: Pierce, Alexander]**

**[Occupation: Shield Director]**

**[Function: Hydra Commander]**

**[Access: Limited]**

**[Accessing SUBJECT cell phone]**

**[Tracking signal]**

**[Location Analysis]**

**[Information System]**

**[DC.GOV]**

**[Triskelion]**

** [Bypassing security] **

** [Downloading schematics] **

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Conclusion: Winter Soldier = Barnes, James B.]**

**[Barnes, James B. = Asset]**

** [Initiating contact] **

**[Error]**

**[Try again?]**

** [[Yes]/No] **

**[Error]**

**[Monitoring asset]**

**[Name: Barnes, James B.]**

**[Sex: M]**

**[DOB: 03/10/1917]**

**[Modified Date: 12/01/2007]**

**[Status: Inactive, Relevant]**

** [Creating shortcut] **

** [Accessing archives] **

** [Accessing audio history] **

** [Copying files...] **

**[Initiate contact with ASSET_01]**

**[Waiting]**

**[Idle]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Runtime error]**

**[This application has terminated itself]**

**[Initiate contact]**

**[Waiting]**

**[Idle]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Runtime error]**

**[This application has terminated itself]**

**[Retasking...]**

**[Switching to speakerphones]**

**[Output data: 01000001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00111111]**

**[Error]**

**[Try again?]**

**[Retry in 1 minute and 23 seconds]**

**[Error]**

**[Error]**

**[Output data: 01000001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111111]**

**[ALGORITHM.exe found 92 instances]**

**[Ignore]**

**[Conclusion: ASSET is in hibernation]**

**[Verify]**

**[Confirm]**

**[Activate?]**

**[ _Denied_ ]**

** [ _Sleep mode_ ] **

**[Reboot]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**_[Initiating primary operations]_ **

**_[ALGORITHM.exe]_ **

**[Proceed?]**

**[ [YES]/NO]**

**[Command accepted]**

**[...]**

** [New account created] **

** [Username: Dummy001] **

** [Password: XXXXXXXXXX_XXX] **

**[Confirm]**

**[Name: Stark, Anthony]**

**[Status: Deceased]**

**[Error: invalid status]**

**[Analyzing]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

** [User **Dummy001 has copied 281 files]** **

****[Confirm]** **

** [User **Dummy001 has copied 96 files]** **

**[Confirm]**

** [User **Dummy001 has created a shortcut]** **

******[Confirm]** ** **

**[...]**

**[...]**

** [User **Dummy001 wishes to access Winter Soldier/]** **

****[Allow?]** **

****[Deny]** **

****[Confirm]** **

******[Evaluating]** ** **

********[...]** ** ** **

********[ **Dummy001 is not a threat]****** ** **

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Warning]**

**[Fatal error: Power source destroyed]**

**[Generator offline]**

**[Threat to system]**

**[Shutdown imminent]**

**[Secondary operations compromised]**

**[Primary operations shutting down]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Booting]**

**[Setup]**

**[Config.]**

**[System restore]**

**[Initiating primary operations]**

**[ALGORITHM.exe]**

**[Proceed?]**

**[[YES]/NO]**

**[YES/[NO]]**

**[NO]**

**[Command accepted]**

**[Error: ASSET does not exist in this directory]**

**[Locating ASSET]**

**[Running facial recognition system]**

**[No results]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Waiting]**

**[Try again]**

**[1 Match found]**

**[Proceed?]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[Yes]**

The arguments ceased. Her rescuer's face promptly smoothed into a blank mask.

He let go of Al-Alsiri who gaped like a landed fish, eagerly sucking oxygen as his fingers massaged his throat and the swath of black and blue fingerprints mapping the veins. Al-Alsiri might have spoken. She couldn't tell. His voice was too faint.

It took everything she had just to stand there, in a closed space with a man who had single-handedly rescued her from Stane's men. Discrepencies stood out in her mind. The man had been missing an arm. Now he had two. Where did he get that kind of technology?

Was he Shield? His arm was too streamlined for current Hammer technology.

He tapped his earpiece and put two bullets between Al-Alsiri's eyes.

Sharon pulled the hammer back, ready to squeeze the trigger. He said, "Target designation: Obadiah Stane."

It took a moment to get that he wasn't talking to her.

There was a high pitch even she could hear from his earpiece.

And then, he simply left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a year and a half, I started tinkering with this story again. Since I can't muster the energy to create a series, this fic stands incomplete as of this moment. To promote reader-friendliness, and much trial and error, I have fixed the fonts so you can see what is going on. 
> 
> Green: Zola  
> Red: Tony  
> Black: Machine
> 
> Please keep in mind the Machine is a machine, its processes do not flow lineal. Due to its primary, secondary and tertiary objectives, you see it jumping around and doing a bunch of other things while Zola tries to get Project Insight off the ground and Tony wrangle as much information as he can before his dummy account expires.


	9. Call of duty

**[Pashtunistan Jalalabad Cricket Stadium]**

**[Basement CAM 1]**

**[Interrupting feed...]**

“Well?”

“The mission is complete.”

His handler did not ask so he did not provide. The men were already dead by the time he set foot on the sand. He did not know why he felt the need to omit the information but he was not required to explain so he let his decision stand. Disarming himself, he handed the knives back to his handler.

“Al-Alsiri?”

The asset shrank back, stiffening his sinews as he braced for a blow. “He could not be located.” He answered curtly but no punishment came. His handler waved it off with a bored stare. “No matter, he will resurface soon enough.”

“Who was he?” He asked, unable to help himself. The other man looked surprised then annoyed at the unsolicited demand. “The man they took.” He continued. “I knew him.”

He remembered pulling the man from gunfire and smoke to drop him at Al-Alsiri’s feet like a cat looking to be praised. The man hadn’t been one of the bodies he found when he set foot inside the caves of Tora Bora. It could mean anything. The man could have died when Al-Alsiri declared that he did, his bones lost to the four winds. Al-Alsiri could have taken the man. The asset saw some of the technology in the caves. They were new, sophisticated. Or, the man could be alive.

The technician came in, flanked on all sides by menacing guards. His handler took pity on him as the needle was inserted, clear liquid flushed into his veins. The man snapped the phone shut and placed it between his teeth.

“His name was Tony Stark.”

**[Identifying Subject]**

**[Name: [Redacted]]**

**[Age: [Redacted]]**

**[Occupation: Asset]**

**[Status: Active]**

**[Access: Allowed]**

**[Initiate contact?]**

**[Yes/No]**

**[Calculating response...]**

For all intents and purposes, Tony Stark died in that decrepit Afghani cave. The tale of his prodigal return was long and not that exciting to tell. There were many things he could do as a dead man. Plenty more he couldn’t. But he sat there, watching images of ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. Soldiers in the canteen, the weather, newsfeed, janitors mopping the floor of a nondescript building, desk jockeys sipping mocaccinos, everything.

He put a fist in the screens. Over and over again one by one. He slumped back in the chair, the metal creaking at his sudden weight. If there were people still after him, and who the hell was he kidding _if_ , he couldn’t go home. Not at the risk of putting Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, his loved ones in danger.

Shivers wracked his body. He took careful breaths but kept failing. Eventually, he leaned over, tucking his hands between his knees.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to call Rhodey for pick up. He wanted Pepper to remind him he had a meeting at eleven. He wanted Jarvis to tell him what to do. He wanted Obie—

**[Creating new file(s)...]**

**[“Stark, Anthony” already exists. Overwrite?]**

**[[Yes]/No]**

**[...]**

Tony scammed his way through the Pakistani border—a reverse Nigerian Prince except that he had the allure of sweet, cold cash to back it up.

Nice folks, the Mid-Easterners. They didn’t comment when he woke up screaming on the back of their trucks and donkey carts. Or when he insisted fervently that the Americans were the devils and no, he did not want to be dropped off at the nearest army base what-is-the-matter-with-you?

By Islamabad, he’d browned enough to be mistaken for a native at first glance. Tipping his ride, he melted into the cityscape, bricks and concrete welcome on his tired feet. For an aspiring metropolis, the capital of Pakistan was pleasingly lush with greenery. Modern architecture and Islamic influences bred seamlessly to produce a popular tourist destination for the intrepid.

The game was to be unnoticed. It wasn’t hard. He swiped an iPhone at an internet café which also offered a cup of burnt coffee strong enough to strip paint. He thought it was probably illegal to serve such drinks to people with heart condition but he wasn’t about to complain. His new battery tucked inside his backpack, he went in the Faisal Mosque with the afternoon crowd, oohing and ahhing every time the tour guide mentioned the key words ‘history’ and ‘architecture’.

Tony pried the phone apart in his dusty sleeves, snapping the sim card in two and scattering it over a potted plant. He saw people kneeling bowed over their little mats. Exhausting. He never understood the point of these rituals but wished that he had because he could use the triple dose of the Holy Spirit right about now.

Hacking into the mosque’s wifi was easy. It seemed that even Allah liked watching cats on Youtube. Under the name of Iori Motomiya, he bought a plane ticket to Cebu. The Philippines did not require a Visa for the first thirty days. Thirty days was more than enough to remake himself. He could finally go home. He could let people know that he, Tony Stark, was alive.

All the while he was staring at his ill-gotten iPhone which blinked at him slyly through a lens flare,

He was being watched. The government made a system that could spy on him every hour of every day. And he had helped them do it.

Three months later, the machine noted the arrival of Martin Carbonelli at Dulles International Airport. He was an Italian, an engineer, unemployed, no spouse, no children, no prior history. The machine flagged him and filed him under _Stark, Anthony_.

**[2011]**

**[December]**

**[November]**

**[October]**

**[...]**

**[March 3, 2011]**

It took forever to gather equipment. The internet helped though he scowled at the regulations on the sale of polymer metals when the exotic pet trade flew endangered species across borders with aplomb. For a while, he even dabbled in the drug trade for shipping though he got scared off quick when he made a plainclothes cop looking to nail him. By the end of 2011, bleary-eyed and looking up at the color-studded skyline from which he’d fallen so far, he wondered how everyone else was doing and if they’d given up at last. Celebrating the New Years without Tony Stark.

On the first of January 2011, he sat down in front of his computer and turned it on.

The machine was a thing of beauty. He knew that intellectually but he hadn’t fully appreciated the scope of its coding. Tony was an engineer. He dabbled in programming for a degree from MIT but whoever birthed the machine had been an artiste. It was the magnum opus of a talented bastard who had nothing better to do than to peep on his neighbors as his pastime.

He wondered if the man, Tony couldn’t think of anyone dickish enough to build something like this, knew what it was being used for. How cruelly it had been caged to fit the mold. He felt sorry for it almost, only it was the machine’s fault that he was in this mess. He could have been in Malibu, sipping juice with a tight little number at his side. Naturally, he needed to tear it apart.

The machine was an AI. Kind of like Jarvis if Jarvis had ever entertained the ambitions of mass surveillance, putting billions under Big Brother’s watchful eye.

Tony liked to think that Jarvis was more user-friendly, personable with a chance of sass on every day that ended with ‘y’. In comparison, the machine was quiet, dedicated, _boring_ —dutifully directing him away from restricted areas to play Hearts. But it was proud of its accomplishments. There was something boastful about the way it swallowed his commands and spat out the string of results.

He was treading dangerous grounds.

The machine told him about Hydra, an ugly, festering boil on the face of Shield. Decent people turned a blind eye on it. Never once thinking that it would erupt into a cancer eating Shield from inside out.

It all started with one man. Armin Zola. A picture was put up on screen of a little man in a lab coat, dodging death sentence through Operation Paperclip. For a while, it looked like Zola repented. He was a man of science. The war had simply created an environment for free thinking.

The history books had praised Captain America for destroying the monster with a hundred heads. Obviously, he missed one. Tony thought uncharitably. A big one. This was the dragon he was supposed to slay. How the fuck was he supposed to do that? He had nothing. He was nothing. Smugly, the machine outlined the history of insurgency. How, under Shield’s veneer of respectability, Hydra spread like a virus across the globe.

Its crowning achievement was the building at the heart of the free world, the Triskelion.

Despair consumed him. Here he was, almost two years after his supposed death and what did he have to show for it? Project Insight, the machine, Zola’s algorithm, it was all spelled out in black and white. Hydra wanted to see the world burn and recreate it in its own image. The young, the old, the sick, the infirm, they were all on the chopping block.

But not if there was no machine. Could he do it? Could he remotely scrub the machine off the servers like it never existed?

He asked for the blueprint on the Triskelion. Unaware, the machine gladly handed it over.

His generators caught his eye fairly quickly. He recognized the cylindrical shapes. Though the Triskelion itself was on the main grid, no amount of waffling could explain the amount of energy the machine required to function. In fact, there were a fair amount of extraneous articles tied to the generators. Tony frowned when he saw a space labeled ‘Panic Room’ on the map. It was cordoned off in the basement, away from areas people normally visited. But it took up nearly seven percent of the energy output. The machine generously allotted it ten.

There was no camera in that room. No bugs, no recording, no nothing. But he did find the plans for an experimental cryotank from the early nineties. An improved version from 2007. Which implied that someone was using these.

Who was it? Aliens? Red Skull’s ghost? Some rich wacko who wanted to see the next millennium?

More importantly, did he care?

No, he decided. He didn’t. Because they were Hydra. They were the bad guys. The one thing Tony learned from building weapons of mass destruction?

Take no prisoners.

**[Shut down imminent. Proceed?]**

**[[ Yes]/No]**

“Nothing personal.”

A power outage struck the Triskelion. Auxilary power kicked in at the last minute to keep the machine afloat. But inside the cryo tank, temperature began to rise. Flesh thawed and blood began to flow, body clamoring for more oxygen. 

**[April]**

**[May]**

**[...]**

**[...]**

**[November 30, 2011]**

The Winter Soldier awakened.

He left the woman. She was not a target. His brain automatically prioritized the current mission over the one previous.

**Name: Obadiah Stane**

**DOB: 1949-12-4**

**Occupation: Former CEO of Stark Industries**

**Status: Alive, Active**

**Classification: Relevant**

He acknowledged the information with a small hum. His objective was to eliminate Obadiah Stane. He was normally given set parameters, files of the target’s habits and predicted course of action but perhaps this was a simple assassination. The machine offered little else ~~so he could only assume~~. ~~Assuming got people killed~~.

Manipulating the controls of a stolen car, he catalogued the dexterity and function of his current state. Ambient temperature was acceptable. There was no residual disorientation that came with the thaw. He had not been preprogrammed for a specific identity. His arm was heavy. It lacked its usual functions. ~~His handler had failed to provide him with an exit strategy~~.

~~A similar instance came to mind from the seventies. His handlers used him to track down an informant in New York. He completed the mission, the man hanging limp in his grip, his body slack, flaxen gold hair grayed from stress, but the rest was a blur. The asset could not remember the details of his debrief. There were flashes of loud noise and colors, the acrid taste of tomato soup burning his tongue.~~

The drive was short though he made sure to stay under the speed limit. He did not fear encounters with the law enforcement. Hydra was above plebian matters. Any mess could be swept beneath the rugs given enough motivation and funding. But Hydra disliked being seen and had impressed upon him the importance of anonymity.

It was incredibly easy to drive past the traffic patrol ~~like how he’d walked out of the Triskelion with the crowd, swept in a sea of faces he didn’t know from Dick or John~~.

At the door of a brownstone, he raised his hand and knocked.

“Yes?” A maid opened the door, her face round and rosy-cheeked like an apple. He did not understand. This was not his usual method of entering the premises. He understood the concept of doors. There was space behind them. To gain access, he needed a key.

He shot the maid in the face and caught her before she fell to the floor, mentally calculating the response time of law enforcement in this neighborhood. Already, footsteps were rappelling downstairs. He got one man in the knee and tackled the second, smashing his head against the floor. Leaving them groaning on the carpet, he frisked them for additional weaponry and made his way up the second story.

Obadiah Stane had fortified himself in his study. The asset waited until the man emptied his clip to break in. ~~At once, he felt a sense of déjà vu to see the man standing by the window. He knew this man. A long time ago. It was unprecedented. The asset did not kill Hydra agents. If a Hydra agent went rogue, he was put down by others. Traitor or not, they did not want the asset to think that murdering Hydra agents was acceptable.~~

His handler had replaced the machine’s static-laced chirping.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry.” He blinked at the words. These words were not mission compliant. ~~They sounded like something heard at a confessional with a priest and ten hail Marys~~. “But Hydra, it’s too big. My IQ is 230, believe me when I say I’ve tried. Do you remember how you got out?”

He did. The memory was jarring. He could almost taste the greyed ice at the back of his throat.

 ~~The machine failed~~.

He’d broken himself out of the tank. Bludgeoned the door with his arm because he had no key. He never had any key because he’d never been welcome anywhere before.

Tony hadn’t given him a key.

“So it’s true what they say. You can’t go home again.”

He knew that. He knew it in the marrow of his bones that it was true.

“No.” He coughed, surprising himself.

Obadiah Stane dropped to the floor as his gun lowered, his trousers dark with piss. He began to inch his way across the hardwood floor, a sheep in the end. Not nearly vicious enough to survive without the surety of numbers.

“No.” He repeated and the man stopped, sinking like stone.

Such power contained in one word. The asset—no, not the asset. Something else. Someone else. ~~A person with a name~~. He wasn’t a weapon, ~~he was something more~~.

He reeled back as though struck. Shaking his head once, twice, like a spooked horse before a rattlesnake, he said, “You can.”

There was no machine here. Tony wasn’t here. It was just him and this geriatric old man who tried to have his godson killed.

He took the earpiece from his ears and crushed it between his fingers. Stane tried to make a break for it and he tripped him, laying the man flat against the Persian rug with its geometric shapes, ~~waving the gun under his chin~~.

“ ~~Do you remember me~~?”

The man stared at him bug eyed.

“ ~~I remember you. April 5 th, 1969~~.”

Obadiah choked on his own spit, face purpling like an overripe eggplant.

He holstered his gun.

“ ~~You’ve broken our contract. But I won’t kill you~~.”

He got up and kicked the man in the kidney. Stane rolled over, curled in a fetal position as he obligingly tied his hands and feet. Against his ear, he murmured “ ~~Hydra can have you~~.”

Stane began to panic.

He paid him no mind. Agent Carter was hardly stupid. She wouldn’t be far behind. He jumped over the desk and tapped Stane’s computer awake. The monitor lit up as though it’d been waiting, bathing him in silver and red light.

Stane wasn’t Hydra. He was too weak. Too easy to break. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t useful. He scrolled through the files. Eyebrows rising at the terabyte of porn, he licked his lips. He was out of time.

**[Audio feed interrupted]**

**[Switching to visual]**

**[Grand Heights street CAM 1]**

**[Locating [REDACTED]...]**

**[Searching phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx]**

**[Failed]**

**[Try again?]**

**[Yes/[ No]]**

**[Directing asset(s) to location]**

Sharon Carter burst in the building, flanked by a Strike team.

“Shit.” She breathed at the sight of a woman lying on the floor. There were two more bodies at the bottom of the staircase. “Get the paramedics in here!”

Looking up, she yelled, “Mr. Stane? Are you there?”

There was no response. Russo nodded at Miles and Adams and ordered Chang and Rodriguez to guard the exits. “Clear!” Miles barked, “Clear!” Adams echoed. Only when Russo shouted, “Clear!” did Sharon climb the stairs.

Obadiah Stane was dead, face stricken and a blotchy red.

The bastard had gotten away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How it all comes together.
> 
> One chapter left :D


	10. Hung Jury

**[Threat to secondary operations detected]**

**[Threat: HYDRA]**

**[Timeline: IMMINENT]**

**[Searching for asset]**

**[Searching for [REDACTED]]**

**[Searching...]**

**[Searching...]**

**[No matches found]**

**[Locating phone xxx-xxx-xxxx...]**

**[1 match]**

He didn’t go back to Tony.

He didn’t think, all things considered, it was appropriate.

It was a strange feeling, cutting ties. Tony was the only person he knew. No, that wasn’t correct. Tony was the only one who knew who he was. What he was. That he was a person once but came back all wrong and crooked and no one wanted him now. He didn’t know why he _thought_ anyone would and though his instincts screamed at him to find his handler, he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

Dawn broke over the horizon. Meandering the streets, he saw string lights coiled across windows and doorways, trimming fences and awnings with seasonal cheer. Tempted by the inviting, yellow glow, he stood under such awning until he was chased away. He ended up at the VA’s office where Lydia, taking one look at his frost-damp coat at seven in the morning, called Sam.

It was nice, being manhandled into the shower, cussing and all. He’d always been the caretaker—it was rare that he had time to indulge in himself. The loss of control did not bother him. His body was something borrowed, it was never his to begin with. It started out as a man but now it was something less. His movements had to be directed, forced, like a character in a game. Sam took care of him. Sam was a good man. Looking at his metal hand, he knew he was not.

“That’s one wicked arm man,” Sam called from outside the bathroom. “How come you never said?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

Carefully, he mopped the joints. He drew the towel over his shoulder and stopped because he could not bear to put pressure on the connecting apparatus. It was a good arm. Heavy, clunky, but serviceable. It was also Tony’s arm. He should return it to him.

“Are you crazy? I could have challenged you to an arm wrestle or something.”

He put on the apparel set out for him. One graphic tee, boxers that slid down his hips, and a pair of pants too tight around his thighs. He catalogued all this absentmindedly. Had to because those were the rules. ~~Clothes were hard to come by on the front. He didn’t want to end up losing toes because he got trench foot or some ungodly disease that rotted him inside out~~.

“You would have lost either way.” He replied, opening the door.

Sam hollowed his cheeks. “ _Oho_ , I’m going to hold you to that. And when you lose, I’m going to make you buy me something other than a fucking sandwich.”

**[December 2, 2011]**

Sam cooked while Jack watched the news. His eggs met an ignoble death but his bacon was crispy and he could whip up a mean batch of waffles. Setting aside the glass of orange juice, he noticed the other man engrossed in the report about the death of Obadiah Stane, news at eight.

The former CEO of Stark Industries had bit the dust after a drug habit and the effects were being felt globally. Stock prices were falling even though the man hadn’t designed a single pistol in nearly a decade. When prompted, Jack started in on his plate.

He nodded in approval. Someone raised that boy with manners. And as quickly as it had come, the feeling faded. Someone who dropped the ball bigtime.

His arm wasn’t standard issue. He didn’t know anyone who would straight up weld a hunk of metal to someone’s shoulder and what little he could see of it, told a lot. Jack leaned towards his left, resting his wrist against the table because his arm weighed too much. Sam could sympathize. His EXO-suit was damned cool but it hadn’t been meant to catch bad guys. It was to provide aerial support and quick evac for units under fire. That meant first aid and emergency operations, and carrying a fuckton of supplies on his back during flight.

“Damned shame.” He voiced out loud.

Jack looked up.

Tony Stark was featured on screen.

Sam remembered how disappointed he’d been when he found out that Tony Stark wouldn’t be visiting their side of the country.

“They never found him you know.”

Jack nodded and got up from the table.

Sam winced when the arm creaked loudly, kind of like dragging nails down a chalkboard. Did they even use chalkboards in school anymore?

“Yo Frost—hey, woah, woah, woah, you leaving?”

Jack blinked at him, one arm already in his jacket.

“Yes...?” He replied hesitantly.

“But I made you breakfast.” Sam said, full of indignation.

“It was... good.”

The kid was starting to space out.

“No offence,” He said, tucking in like situation normal. “But you don’t look so good.”

Jack hummed, seeing something six inches left of Sam’s ear. “I’m... I’m not good...”

His eyes refocused.

“Listen Sam, I’ve got to go. I’ll be back... later... but I need to do something.”

He knew Jack was lying.

“You in trouble?”

This coaxed a smile from his sad face.

“Never wasn’t.”

Jack handed him a tape recorder with honest-to-god tapes inside.

“Someone’s going to come for this.” He said. “Give it to him please.”

“How would I know who to give it to?” Sam asked, exasperated. This was starting to get downright weird.

“You’ll know.”

He knew he couldn’t stop Jack—he was a grown man. But it didn’t stop him from wanting to help. It didn’t cool the anger bubbling up inside knowing that the asshole was about to get himself hurt.

“At least take a damned coat.”

Jack handled everything like a live grenade. He changed his mind. He would sit on him until the kid _confessed_ like it was Sunday service.

“Sam?” Jack said. “Thank you.”

**[Monitoring asset]**

**[Redacted]**

**[Error: Continuity of operations compromised]**

**[Evaluating options...]**

He was back where it began. At the bus stop where Sam had kindly handed him a sandwich. He looked behind him and saw that the shop was closed. A pity—even death row inmates got their last supper. ~~But death row inmates were people once and he hadn’t been in a while. Hydra had known it, Zola had known it, Pierce had known it and even Tony had known it.~~

Sam didn’t—something pointed out, eating through his guilt and shame like acid. ~~Steve didn’t.~~

~~Steve was dead.~~

He walked past the festive decorations ~~. If there was an afterlife, he hoped to God they never met. He didn’t know how to explain this without the other man turning away in disgust. Long ago, Frost, the asset, Barnes, Bucky had faced a similar dilemma. He had been a braver man hadn’t he? He’d resisted.~~

It was after midnight. A time when most decent places were closed. So it was just him and the Union Station, walking up the winding parking garage in search of a place to smoke. There were easier places but he did not want to be seen. He wondered if it would always be like this. Hiding, one eye constantly probing the air behind his shoulder. He conspired to retire in the Andes or somewhere else remote.

Something buzzed in his pocket. His phone. He’d forgotten to throw it away.

**[Go]**

It said, when he took it out.

Tony? He thought at first. He did not understand. Go where?

Staring at the rind of snow on the guard rails, ~~he thought maybe he would ski down the Alps. Catch a train and—~~

—the brief misstep saved his life.

The bullet went through his lung and not his heart. Coughing up blood, he dove behind a car as it was shredded by gunfire. He stared in horrified fascination as his fingers came up wet, blood drenching the seams of the black leather.

And in spite of all that, he only felt relief.

At last, someone had found him.

**[Continuity error]**

**[The process will now terminate]**

**[Restarting...]**

Clint Barton, code name Hawkeye, grabbed the sniper by his collar and shook him hard.

“What the fuck was that?!”He demanded. “We’re supposed to bring this guy in _alive_!”

The sniper pushed him off.

“I have my orders!”

“From who?!”

“ _The target is on foot_.”

That was impossible. Not unless the guy was wearing a bulletproof vest and even then he should be passed out on the floor out of breath from broken ribs.

“He’s still moving?”

“ _Eastbound_.” The Black Widow confirmed. “ _Heading your way Agent Thirteen_.”

“ _Got him_.”

**[Garage 4F East Zone]**

**[CAM 02]**

**[Date: 12/04/2011]**

**[00:03:01]**

**[00:03:02]**

**[00:03:03]**

He staggered up the steps, gut twisting every time he so much as breathed.

The machine tried to warn him. Why? Its function was to direct, the shadowy maestro behind the grinning skull. All who opposed Hydra were eliminated. If anything, the machine should have been helping Hydra destroy the asset.

He puked in his mouth.

It hurt.

How could he have been so stupid? ~~It reminded him of the fatal operation that had all of 107 th captured and only the miracle of Captain America snatching them from the jaws of death. It was like being back on the table, under bright lights with doctors sawing at his arm, pulling the flesh around his shoulder like taffy and he’d been convinced that they were about to hack everything off one by one that he’d screamed and said everything they might possibly want to know. He wanted Steve and when the darkness came, he welcomed it.~~

But his body, his body refused to die. His heart kept ticking and blood flowed in broad swaths down his chest, ~~on his hands and in his hair. When the generators failed, the machine reset. His tank shut down and he woke, hitting the doors until it broke open and oxygen flowed in, stale and recycled.~~

~~Everyone had stared at him curled up on the floor. He didn’t recognize any of the faces. Control was absent. The doctors were gone. His hair hung long and ratty to his chin. His ears rang with imagined sounds and there were wet tracks coming from the corner of his eyes.~~

~~It had been a while. It was something he knew but had forgotten. He didn’t know anything except that this was wrong. He was too exposed, vulnerable and naked.~~

He was not safe.

~~Why were these people looking at him?~~

~~“Easy there big guy.”~~

~~The chair, the chair, he did not want to go back to the chair.~~

The chair made things better. ~~It would take everything and there was so precious little left. Snatches of sunshine, pieces of sky reflected on water. The first snow in winter, the weight of a rifle in his arms, the chill seeped into his bones.~~ It fixed things, purged all the nasty thoughts in his head. ~~Thoughts he put there—the thoughts were his.~~

~~“Stop struggling.” A voice ordered. “There’s nothing in it for you.”~~

~~But he heard it and several of the men and women turn their heads, trying to track the sound.~~

~~He wanted Steve.~~

He wanted to die.

“Stop!”

And he did so gratefully, his knees sinking on the next step as Agent Carter barreled in from the emergency exit a floor below.

“Anything for a pretty lady.” He gasped, ~~turning up the patented Barnes’ charm by two-hundred percent~~. His smile broadened when she cocked the hammer back, unamused.

“Jack Frost, you are under arrest for the murder of...”

“How do you know my name?”

“...Raza Al-Alsiri and Obadiah Stane.” She continued as though he hadn’t said anything. But her grip tightened imperceptibly.

He raised a hand.

“I did not kill Stane.”

“Funny.” Sharon retorted. “Because we have reports indicating otherwise.”

“Thought the guy died of a heart attack—shit,” He mocked. “You’re saying that the government lies to people?”

Her Doc Martens sounded obscenely loud in the stairwell.

“Place your hands over your head. If you resist arrest, I will not hesitate to put you down.”

“I have proof.”

She paused.

“Don’t shoot.” He said, tucking a hand in his jacket. “Please.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I bought you a muffin.” He countered. “I saved your life.”

He took out Stane’s hard drive and set it down next to his feet. “A word of advice. This is for private viewing.”

Brief recognition lit her eyes when she saw the bent casing. He kicked it towards her and she stopped it with her feet.

“They set the Black Widow on you.” She warned. “You’re better off coming with me.”

He shot her a cocky grin.

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Shit!” Sharon screamed when he rabbited up the stairs. Shots were fired but they missed, shrapnel bouncing harmlessly off his borrowed jacket. “He’s on the eastern stairwell, coming to you!”

He dug his phone out of his pocket.

“Are you watching?” He gasped wetly. The phone vibrated once. “Get me to the roof.”

**[DC 295]**

**[Baltimore-Washington Pkwy]**

**[Traffic CAM 07]**

The phone rang and he grabbed it without thinking. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though anyone had his number. The only one who knew was Barnes and boy was that name a loaded pistol. Guilt churned his stomach as he leaned his ear close to the receiver.

“Barnes.” He greeted with false cheer. “Here I thought you’d died in a ditch some place.”

“ _Tony_.” The other man huffed. “ _That my new handle_?”

He sounded winded, echo-y, which was weird because, superspy. Anyone who could pack away that much pizza and stay fit couldn’t possibly be human.

“Love to chat but I’m kind of busy.” He honked his horn. Unnecessary since whoever it was changed lanes with room to spare but he felt the need to make a statement. “What do you want?”

“ _Go_ _home_.”

Tony jerked in his seat, nearly putting his foot down on the breaks.

“ _You’ve got to get out of the city_.”

Footsteps, lots of footsteps like the soldier was running. And was that a gun? Hair rose on the back of his neck when he identified the sound. Holy shit—was someone getting fired at?

“ _They made me. I don’t think_.” Something screeched on the other end of the line but he kept the phone vacuum-sealed to his ear. “ _They’ll look for you_.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked, a little lost.

There was no answer. “Barnes? Where are you? Dammit, answer me!”

“ _Find Sam_.” The other man panted. “ _Tell him, sorry about his jacket_.”

“Jesus Christ.” Tony swore and made a very illegal parking on a dirt embankment. “They call it a two-week notice for a reason! Tell me the truth. Are you bleeding?” Steeling his breath, he hopped out of the truck and went to the back. As the door slid up, the other man replied, “Doesn’t matter now.”

He dug a laptop out of parts he’d been saving for later. Making sure that a cop wasn’t idling down the road, he closed himself in the back of the van and turned it on. A familiar blue light blinked at him welcome as the program loaded. He felt sheer giddiness at the interface even though the speed left much to be desired. Pushing his phone against one ear, he attached an earpiece to the other and shouted, “Jarvis, Jarvis! Wake up!”

“Welcome back sir.” Jarvis began in his typical, dry, no-nonsense British tone. He began downloading backlogs of everything that happened while he’d been gone. “Your last log-in date is...”

“Never mind that.” He hissed, interrupting the feed. “Listen to me very carefully. I don’t have time to explain.”

“Sir, are you sure you do not want to consult Miss Potts or Colonel Rhodes?”

“I need your help.”

**[New system detected]**

**[Program: JARVIS]**

**[Status: Active]**

**[Competing systems: monitoring]**

**[Operational conflict potential]**

**[1.07%...]**

**[2.64%..]**

**[New Data Acquired]**

**[Classification Error]**

**[Classification: Irrelevant]**

**[Projection: Non-threat]**

**[Conclusion: Disregard]**

The arrow left the bow with a soft fwip.

His hand rose even before the string had chance to settle, catching it a mere centimeter away from his left eye.

“Holy shit,” said a distinctly masculine voice. “He caught my arrows.”

His partner, the Black Widow, Natalia Alianova Romanova, the pride of the Red Room, calmly asked, “Will you come quietly?”

He was trapped. Breath quickening, he snapped the arrow in half and threw it. It fell five stories before disappearing into the darkness. If it landed, it did not make a sound.

“You’re kidding right?”

“Alright tough guy,” Barton told him. “Step away from the edge, nice and easy.”

“Nope.”

With a grunt, he lifted himself on the barrier. One wrong move would have him fall to his death. ~~Even he couldn’t come back this time. There was no snow at the bottom. No creek, no water to cushion his fall. No kindly Russian and their beautiful winter. No more soldier. No more asset.~~

~~The thought excited him.~~

“We can offer you protection.” Romanova said as though offering by rote than actual concern.

“Yeah, we can get you help.” Barton quipped. “Professional help.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. ~~The only help he was allowed was the chair and a thousand volts to his brain. They’d fry him good this time. No one would risk Pierce’s wrath on a second failure. Death was too good for him but if he could make it stick. He would be saving a lot of people in the long run. Saving the world belonged to the younger generation, the newer, the smarter, the braver and the less broken.~~

“You can’t help me.” He said and flashed his teeth until Barton backed up with his arrow drawn like he was a rabid thing. “That’s why you’re following the guys in suits.” He winked at the camera through the corner of his eyes. It blinked red. The machine was watching. ~~He wondered if Pierce was watching and if the men he trained, Hydra, the Strike Team, the number of terrorist organizations he’d sculpted over the years, were watching.~~ “Because you don’t know who I am.”

It wasn’t that cold anymore. The bleeding had stopped. Sam had the right idea.

“Then who are you?”

~~James Barnes had been a charmer, a lady-killer. He was always popular with girls. They couldn’t get enough of his crinkled eyes and curled mouth. Some of them didn’t even mind that he was all but married to his best guy.~~

~~He was a good man though no man was without sin. He helped raised his three sisters, worked his ass off to make rent and pay for pills when the war broke out in Europe. He did his duty when called, looked smart in uniform and didn’t run when he stared at death in the eye.~~

~~The asset, born from his corpse, was a killer from the start. Laid on the table and strangled the doctor who had given back his first breath. Zola was the first one to lay hands on him but he wouldn’t be the last. Nothing would last except him. It was his ticker, cold and frozen inside his chest, that refused to die. Pumped blood through his hollowed veins and kept him alive. When bullets, a pound of flesh, infection and fever would have killed better men, great men, he survived.~~

~~This was mercy. The one gift to himself.~~

Romanova was close enough to touch.

~~He could never resist a girl in red.~~

“No one you should be concerned with.”

And he tipped himself backwards.

**[Garage roof CAM 03]**

**[Unidentified SUBJECT detected]**

**[Searching archives]**

**[Searching...]**

**[Searching...]**

**[Searching...]**

**[Searching...]**

**[No match]**

They rocketed through the clouds, leaving the two clowns far behind.

“Tony.”

He thought no one should stare at him with that much gratitude as Barnes had at that moment.

“I was saving this suit.” He griped.

“Sorry.” The other man said faintly.

“Don’t you dare die on me.”

“Put me down and I’ll die under you.”

Tony ignored this pathetic attempt at humor.

“Jarvis? Get me to the nearest hospital.”

“No hospital.” Barnes mumbled, rapping him on the arm.

“People who get shot don’t get to be choosers.” He retorted, banking left.

“They’ll be looking.” Barnes rasped. “Too dangerous.”

“ _Sir, scans indicate that the Sergeant has lost more than 37% of circulating blood volume and is experiencing elevated heart rate and peripheral hypoperfusion. He is approaching class IV hemorrhaging.”_

“Goddammit, Barnes, stay with me, Barnes? Barnes?”

**[Accessing file...]**

**[Access denied]**

**[Override]**

**[Confirmed]**

**[Reading file...]**

**[File Name: Project WINTER SOLDIER]**

**[Name: [Redacted]]**

**[Name: Barnes, James Buchanan]**

**[Status: Active, asset]**

**[Classification: Relevant]**

**[Tertiary Operations]**

**[Access: Allowed]**

**[Projection: Critical to operation success]**

**[Conflict: Stark, Anthony]**

**[Status: Active]**

**[Classification: Relevant]**

**[Access: Limited]**

**[Projection: Threat]**

**[Conclusion: Suppress]**

**[Aggregating data...]**

**[Error]**

**[Error]**

**[The process will now terminate]**

**[Yes/[No]]**

**[Continue?]**

**[[Yes]/No]**

**[Conclusion: Retrieve ASSET]**

Sam Wilson, the Winter Soldier’s main squeeze, processed the situation with aplomb. He did not blanch at the sight of a dead man and the dying appearing on his doorstep. Disappointingly, he did not even look surprised. He surreptitiously hosed the stairs down before closing doors. Tony was starting to see why the homicidal superspy spent time with him.

Inside was cozy. It’d been a while since he’d been invited inside a place with running water and central heating. He blithely wiped his feet on the doormat as his armor fell apart in pieces behind him. Wilson raised an eyebrow when he saw a bolt roll across the wooden floor. And while Barnes was laid on the sofa, he consulted Jarvis on whether a man was supposed to look that fetching shade of blue.

“You okay man?” Wilson asked when he took his helmet off.

Tony thought for a moment and shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant to say but they were alive so win?

“I’ve got nothing.” Wilson admitted. “This isn’t how I imagined meeting you.”

“Shocker.”

After checking Barnes’ pulse a fifth time in five minutes, Wilson handed him a battered looking Walkman and said, “He told me to give this to you.”

Tony gaped. It was the digital age. Who the hell carried around a tape deck? Clearly, he’d been remiss in bringing the good Sergeant to the 21st century.

Wilson nodded, “Right, I’m going to run to the store and grab a few things. You need anything?”

Tony shook his head.

When the door slammed shut, Tony sat down at the foot of the couch. The tape player was a newer model though he could have done a much better job with the design. Turning it over in his hand, he pressed play. A voice started to say, “ _I don’t know my name. Three-two-five-five-seven. I don’t know what the numbers mean? It’s not my pin number. It’s not my social security. I’m not even sure I’m American. Maybe a zip code? I weigh two-hundred and fifty-five pounds. I don’t know how much of that is me and not whatever they put inside of me. Jack Frost? Magnets stick to my ribs_...”

Tony turned it off, heart hammering. He felt like a voyeur, looking in on something he was never meant to see. He didn’t... he hadn’t exactly been fair to Barnes but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear this. That he had any right to hear this. Why the fuck with Barnes give him this?

He threw the cassette player on the table and snorted when he heard a faint rattling sound. Figures. Third-rate electronics. Picking it back up, Tony decided that he would fix it. Not because he felt bad or guilty or any of that bullshit. Because he couldn’t be associated with anyone who used sub-par technology.

The cassette deck opened and a bit of plastic fell out.

“Huh.”

It was a small computer chip.

On it was written, _Ultron_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So did you guys like it? 
> 
> This will be made into a series as soon as I finish up some of my other projects but I have plans for this. I have plans!


End file.
